Sea Stars and Beetles, Vast and Varied

Continuing our series on the Ocean Literacy Principles , we now move beyond ocean geology, chemistry and physics, as described in the first four Principles. With Principle #5 we turn to ocean biology and we finally meet living ocean organisms, large and small, many and varied. The key concept here is diversity.

Principle #5: The Ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems.

When I lead tour groups at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I usually begin with the 2 story, 400,000 gallon Kelp Forest Exhibit, a signature recreation of the habitat found directly off the Aquarium’s decks and up and down the Northern California coastline. I explain that this, like all the Aquarium’s exhibits is a neighborhood, a habitat, with many different organisms, unlike old aquariums with smaller tanks featuring just one kind of fish. I compare the kelp forest to a rain forest underwater and sometimes say this habitat is like the state of California, “rich, productive and diverse.”

On the days that I lead groups that are part of my church’s Blue Theology ministry, youth and adult groups interested in learning more about ocean stewardship and spirituality from a Christian perspective, I go on to say, “I’m always amazed there are so many different species of plants and animals in one habitat, so many different adaptations on how to find food and avoid being eaten. One might think that if one particular lifestyle or body type proved so successful, all animals would eat and protect and reproduce in the same way. But no, there is so much variation! For me, looking at this amazing Monterey Bay habitat, helps me believe that God is especially fond of diversity.”

I got this idea, that God loves diversity, from the lively debate in England in the 19th century among various ministers, naturalists and scientists. My favorites are the “parson-naturalists.” I think I would have been one of them. Between sermons and pastoral calls they compiled vast catalogues of insects and wildflowers, discovered dinosaurs and minerals, came to question the 6-day Biblical story of creation and established natural history museums across the land.

One of the later ones in this group, Dr. J. B. S. Haldane, a Cambridge biologist, was asked If anything could be concluded about God the Creator by studying creation, and he said, “It would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.”

(There are nearly 300,000 known species of beetles, as compared to 9,000 species of birds and 10,000 species of mammals. There are more beetle species than any other insect. As for stars, the total is 1 with 24 0’s after it. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.)

But it really doesn’t matter whether you think God had a hand in creating stars and beetles and ocean organisms or it just happened naturally; nature’s remarkable diversity cannot be denied. Life on land, and, we now know, in the sea also, is vastly vast and invariably varied. This 5th principle affirms the ocean’s vast and varied organisms and ecosystems.

This principle’s sub-points detail this diversity (even the number of sub-points is more diverse than the previous principles):

1. Ocean life ranges in size from the smallest living things, microbes, to the largest animal that has lived on Earth, blue whales.
2. Most of the organisms and biomass in the ocean are microbes, which are the basis of all ocean food webs. Microbes are the most important primary producers in the ocean. They have extremely fast growth rates and life cycles, and produce a huge amount of the carbon and oxygen on Earth.
3. Most of the major groups that exist on Earth are found exclusively in the ocean and the diversity of major groups of organisms is much greater in the ocean than on land.
4. Ocean biology provides many unique examples of life cycles, adaptations and important relationships among organisms (symbiosis, predator-prey dynamics, and energy transfer) that do not occur on land.
5. The ocean provides a vast living space with diverse and unique ecosystems from the surface through the water column and down to, and below, the seafloor. Most of the living space on Earth is in the ocean.
6. Ocean ecosystems are defined by environmental factors and the community of organisms living there. Ocean life is not evenly distributed through time or space due to differences in abiotic factors such as oxygen, salinity, temperature, pH, light, nutrients, pressure, substrate and circulation. A few regions of the ocean support the most abundant life on Earth, while most of the ocean does not support much life.
7. There are deep ocean ecosystems that are independent of energy from sunlight and photosynthetic organisms. Hydrothermal vents, submarine hot springs, and methane cold seeps rely only on chemical energy and chemosynthetic organisms to support life.
8. Tides, waves, predation, substrate, and/or other factors cause vertical zonation patterns along the coast: density, pressure, and light levels cause vertical zonation patterns in the open ocean. Zonation patterns influence organisms’ distribution and diversity.
9. Estuaries provide important and productive nursery areas for many marine and aquatic species.

That’s a lot of information packed into one principle. Allow me to highlight just two of the sub-points, #3 and #5.

“The diversity of major groups of organisms is much greater in the ocean than on land.” “Most of the living space on Earth is in the ocean.”

If I count just the different bugs in my forest neighborhood, I see a vastly diverse population. Any National Geographic TV special amplifies this idea of biodiversity across the land surface of a region or a nation. If what I see on land or TV is just a fraction of the diversity that can be found in the ocean, then that complexity is beyond my comprehension. It feels like a number with many many zeros after it. Plus, since marine biodiversity is under the ocean surface, it is hidden from immediate or easy view. Hence the need to do some work to study the ocean, and become ocean literate.

There is a certain aged child (7-10) who is fascinated with numbers. They will ask, in front of the Kelp Forest Exhibit, “How many fish are in there?” or “How much water is in there?” We guides carry around a handy information card that tells us that in the whole Aquarium there are “more than 30,000 creatures representing 600 species of fishes, mammals, birds, reptiles, invertebrates, algae and plants.” And what’s on exhibit is just a fraction of the many marine organisms of the Central Coast. Multiply that by what you’d find in the whole ocean (remember Principle #1, there is just one world ocean) and the largest living space on Earth is bursting with life.

I could give you lots more numbers to make the diversity point. Just in waters of Monterey Bay there are over 40 different kinds of sea stars – orange, purple, white, big little, smooth, rough, 5, 6, 12 legged. Worldwide there are over 350 different kinds of sharks and those sharks are all very different. For example, they reproduce in three different ways, depending on where they live. The giant kelp in the exhibit and just off the shore grows a foot in length every day. The piles of kelp on the beach after a winter storm represent only one tenth of it all – most sinks to the ocean floor and feeds deep sea organisms dependent on those winter kelp falls for its very occasional meals. These kelp stats are about abundance, sub-point #6. It’s all vast and varied and there’s lots of it.

So if you want to pass the literacy test for Principle #5, just remember that God, or nature, seems to be inordinately fond of stars and sea stars, beetles and beaches, wasps and whales. How much more interesting than is than if we were all identical. Like California – rich, productive, diverse. Thank God for diversity. Copyright

© 2017 Deborah Streeter