![[option 1] image for](../media/res/ocean.svg)
Take a break from your all your animal antics. You've been so busy. 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 gets burned for the energy the fish uses to flex a muscle to flip its tail. Releasing the energy by breaking down the sugar also releases carbon dioxide. The resulting carbon dioxide gets carried in the bloodstream to the gills. As the carbon dioxide leaves the gills it is exchanged for oxygen which can be used to burn more sugar. The released carbon dioxide remains dissolved in the water.
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
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Those flashy fins can only fight gravity for so long. Lay down with us. Come as you are. Settle 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, breaking 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 as sediment, adding more layers to the ocean floor.
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
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 in the orchestra of life.
Learn much more with Wikipedia: Aquatic_animal
