Ocean Ecosystems
Virginia SOL OC.2
Investigate and understand that ocean ecosystems support a great diversity of life and the factors influencing biodiversity.
What students need to be able to do
- Explain how biotic and abiotic factors affect biodiversity within marine ecosystems.
- Make, support, and evaluate a claim about factors that promote and control the locations of primary productivity and its effect on ocean ecosystems.
- Identify characteristics of major groups (kingdom, phylum, and class) of marine organisms.
- Make, support, and evaluate a claim about how unique morphological features of marine organisms help them survive and thrive in their respective marine niches.
- Explain the benefit of daily vertical migration for zooplankton and its effects on ocean ecosystems.
- Develop and use a model to predict the transfer of energy within ocean ecosystems and predict the effects of natural and anthropogenic events on ecosystem health.
- Compare the relative roles of chemosynthesis and photosynthesis in biological productivity of ocean ecosystems.
- Debate advantages and disadvantages of a solution to a natural or anthropogenic threat to a marine organism.