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The Shark's Helpful Role in the Ocean
Sharks play an important role in the ocean food chain. If
sharks decline to seriously low numbers, commercial fisheries
could be threatened. In Australia, one lobster fishery is threatened,
because the declining number of sharks cannot control the lobster
eating octopuses.
Photo by J. E.
Maragos
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Photo by J. E.
Maragos
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Sharks reproduce similar to mammals in that they have a low
rate of reproduction and do not spawn like fish which have a
thousands or millions of larvae, hoping for a certain percentage
to sustain the species. Sharks play an important role at all
tropic levels of the ocean ecosystem from scavengers to super-predators.
Scavengers prey upon dead or dying animals, super predators help
to control populations and maintain prey species diversity by
concentrating on the most available species. Is important to
the ecology of the seas by removing the weakest, sick and dead
so that the fittest survive.
Photo provided
by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
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The balance of the ecosystem is extremely important because
all organisms belonging to the ecosystem depend upon each other
to maintain this balance. All living organisms within an ecosystem
are called a community. The organisms within a community are
co-dependent upon each other. The relationship between these
organisms form a food web. A food web is a series of interconnecting
food chains. The intricate links between organisms supporting
each other form a food chain. This food chain is only one strand
in a complex tangle of relationships. The marine food chain in
Coral Bay consisted of:
Lobsters who were eaten by octopuses, who were eaten by sharks.
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Plants form the base of almost every food chain on Earth.
Plants use energy from the sun to make their own food through
photosynthesis. In turn, some animals eat plants, and other animals
eat the plant eating animals. Like on land, most animals that
live in the ocean depend on plants for food. And at the bottom
of the food chain is probably the most important - phytoplankton.
Millions of these tiny marine plants drift near the ocean's surface.
Tiny animals called zooplankton eat the phytoplankton as well
as clams, corals and small fish. Animals such as fish, jellyfish
and even some whales eat zooplankton. Larger fish and animals
eat some of the animals that eat zooplankton and so forth. If
one link within this food chain were missing it would create
adjustments or an imbalance within the community. If the large
shark was missing in this food chain, the large predator fish
population would grow. This may cause depletion of the smaller
prey fish, causing an imbalance. Therefore, the population of
a species is also an important aspect of the ecosystem hierarchy.
Every ecosystem, no matter how fragile, supports an individual.
Sharks eat the weak, sick and dead fish which maintains a healthy
ocean ecosystem, enabling the fittest to survive.
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