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Large marine ecosystem



Large marine ecosystems (LMEs) are regions of the world's oceans, encompassing coastal areas from river basins and estuaries to the seaward boundaries of continental shelves and the outer margins of the major ocean current systems. They are relatively large regions on the order of 200,000 km² or greater, characterized by distinct bathymetry, hydrography, productivity, and trophically dependent populations.

The system of LMEs has been developed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to identify areas of the oceans for conservation purposes.

Although the LMEs cover only the continental margins and not the deep oceans and oceanic islands, the 64 LMEs produce 95% of the world's annual marine fishery biomass yields. Most of the global ocean pollution, overexploitation, and coastal habitat alteration occur within their waters. NOAA has conducted studies of principal driving forces affecting changes in biomass yields for 33 of the 64 LMEs, which have been peer-reviewed and published in ten volumes [1].

Large Marine Ecosystems (NOAA)

  1. East Bering Sea
  2. Gulf of Alaska
  3. California Current
  4. Gulf of California
  5. Gulf of Mexico
  6. Southeast U.S. Continental Shelf
  7. Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf
  8. Scotian Shelf
  9. Newfoundland-Labrador Shelf
  10. Insular Pacific-Hawaiian
  11. Pacific Central-American Coastal
  12. Caribbean Sea
  13. Humboldt Current
  14. Patagonian Shelf
  15. South Brazil Shelf
  16. East Brazil Shelf
  17. North Brazil Shelf
  18. West Greenland Shelf
  19. East Greenland Shelf
  20. Barents Sea
  21. Norwegian Shelf
  22. North Sea
  23. Baltic Sea
  24. Celtic-Biscay Shelf
  25. Iberian Coastal
  26. Mediterranean Sea
  27. Canary Current
  28. Guinea Current
  29. Benguela Current
  30. Agulhas Current
  31. Somali Coastal Current
  32. Arabian Sea
  33. Red Sea
  34. Bay of Bengal
  35. Gulf of Thailand
  36. South China Sea
  37. Sulu-Celebes Sea
  38. Indonesian Sea
  39. North Australian Shelf
  40. Northeast Australian Shelf/Great Barrier Reef
  41. East-Central Australian Shelf
  42. Southeast Australian Shelf
  43. Southwest Australian Shelf
  44. West-Central Australian Shelf
  45. Northwest Australian Shelf
  46. New Zealand Shelf
  47. East China Sea
  48. Yellow Sea
  49. Kuroshio Current
  50. Sea of Japan
  51. Oyashio Current
  52. Sea of Okhotsk
  53. West Bering Sea
  54. Chukchi Sea
  55. Beaufort Sea
  56. East Siberian Sea
  57. Laptev Sea
  58. Kara Sea
  59. Iceland Shelf
  60. Faroe Plateau
  61. Antarctica
  62. Black Sea
  63. Hudson Bay
  64. Arctic Ocean

See also

  • ecoregion
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Large_marine_ecosystem". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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