E Top

Ecology: The study of how living organisms relate to and interact with their surroundings

Ecosystem: All the organisms in a biotic community and the abiotic environmental factors with which they interact.

Endemism: A taxa restricted in distribution to a particular geographical area and occurring nowhere else.

Epibenthic: Living on the surface of the ocean bottom.

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Fauna: Another term describing animals.

Fecundity: The number of eggs produced per female per unit of time, a measure of reproductive effort.

Food web: A network describing the feeding interactions of all the animals in an area.

Foraminifera: Protozoan group which are abundant in the plankton and benthos of all oceans and possess a protective test (shell) usually composed of calcium carbonate.

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Gastropoda: A class of mollusca, most of which possess an asymmetrical spiral one-piece shell and a well-developed flattened foot. Includes snails, limpets, abalone, cowries, sea hares and sea slugs.

Gastrozooid: a specialized feeding polyp.

Gene flow: The movement of genes (strictly alleles) within and between populations.

Global warming: Increase in global temperature caused by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Gorgonians: Or sea fans are octocorals. All species known as gorgonian have horny skeletons.

Grazer: The process of consuming organisms smaller than itself, also used to describe animals which rasp benthic algae or sessile animals, such as bryozoan crusts, from the substratum.

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Habitat: A geographical location where individuals or populations of individuals reside.

Hard coral: General term for skeletal Anthozoa, also known as ‘stony coral’ (see scleractinians).

Hermaphrodite: An individual that possesses both male and female reproductive organs.

High seas: This term, in municipal and international law, denotes all continuous bodies of salt water in the world that are navigable in its character and that lies outside territorial waters and maritime belts of the various countries; also called open sea.

Hydrocarbon seeps: Areas where hydrocarbons seep slowly from the sea floor, may be associated with specific faunal composition.

Hydrodynamic: Relates to the specific scientific principles that deal with the motion of fluids examples include currents and oceanic circulation.

Hydrozoa: A class of coelenterates that characteristically exhibits alternation of generations with a sessile polypoid colony giving rise to a pelagic medusoid form by asexual budding.