Take a break from your all your animal antics. You've been busy building and breaking bonds, now slow down and take a look around. Delve into the Ocean.

Go through the process of RESPIRATION.

The gills of a fish release carbon dioxide into the water. A sugar that enters the fish in its food and used to build its muscles gets burned for the energy for the fish to flip its tail. The resulting carbon dioxide gets carried in the bloodstream to the gills. The released carbon dioxide remains suspended in the water. The oxygen needed to burn the sugar came into through the gills in exchange for respired carbon dioxide. That oxygen travelled through the bloodstream to the muscle where the sugar was burned.

[In as food; out as carbon dioxide]

BEGIN AS: Animal Biomass. BECOME: Carbon Dioxide.

C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6 O₂ => 6 CO₂ + 6 H₂O + energy

Sugar+ Oxygen => Carbon Dioxide + Water + Energy

Living things burn sugar to release energy in the process of respiration.

Learn much more with Wikipedia: Aquatic_respiration

Those flashing fins can only fight gravity for so long. Need some, "me-time"? Come to a place where you can concentrate. Slip into SEDIMENT!

Go through the process of DECOMPOSITION.

Once a fish dies it becomes food for microorganisms. Dead marine animals of all sizes, rich in carbon, provide energy for other organisms in the food web. As the remains float about or begin to sink to the ocean floor they are broken down. Microbes decompose the animal bodies, break carbon bonds for chemical energy, leaving smaller and smaller bits of nutrients suspended in the water. These bits of the organic matter may clump together and fall to the ocean floor as "marine snow." Eventually, pieces of plants and animals pile up on each other, adding more layers to the ocean floor. Pressure from the accumulating material and the ocean water above compounds the carbon into sedimentary rock.

BEGIN AS: Animal Biomass. BECOME: Sedimentary Organic Matter.

C₆H₁₂O₆ => 2 C₂H₅OH + 2 C0₂

Sugar => Ethanol + Carbon Dioxide

Complex organic molecules are broken down to simpler forms in the process of decomposition.

Learn much more with Wikipedia: Decomposition, Sedimentation

start over

You are Carbon in a Marine Animal

Swimming, swimming in a slippery fish. We play so many vital roles. Sustaining, maintaining, building, growing ... swimming.

Traveling through the food chain, carbon plays a wide range of roles in living things, from the sugars that fuel bodies to the backbone of DNA. In animal bodies, in myriad processes, carbon bonds are broken for energy and carbon bonds are made in building all the the variety of structures in a living, growing body. A magnificent symphony of breaking and making of carbon compounds goes on inside, orchestrated for life.

Learn much more with Wikipedia: Aquatic_animal

glucose, a protein, an enzyme, DNA, RNA, a starch