What kind of habitats are oceans and coastlines?
Most people know what an ocean is, although there are many people around the world who have never seen one. But despite how they look, oceans are not one uniform type of habitat. The location and depth of an ocean affects the light, pressure, temperature, and available nutrients, and that determines what can live there. Most of the ocean is actually like a desert, with few resources for animals and plants to live on. But there are areas in the open ocean where underwater vents or volcanoes release minerals and gases that can support life. Then there are the coastlines, the areas of land that surround the oceans, which release nutrients from the land into the sea and provide a suitable habitat for a wide variety of animals and plants.
