- Industry: Government
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NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
The genetic material of the mitochondria. It is similar in structure to that of the prokaryotic genetic material, formed of a single circular DNA molecule. The mitochondria of sexually-reproducing animals usually comes only from the maternal side, and is essentially the same as that of the mother. Sometimes mitochondria from spermatozoa are also passed on to offspring. Mitochondrial DNA has been studied to trace lineage far back in time.
Industry:Natural environment
The rate at which new plant biomass is formed by photosynthesis. Gross primary productivity is the total rate of photosynthetic production of biomass; net primary productivity is gross primary productivity minus the respiration rate .
Industry:Natural environment
Tissue in vascular plants that carries water and nutrients from the roots to the shoot and leaves. The xylem contains tracheids, vessels, fibre cells and parenchyma. It also provides structural support.
Industry:Natural environment
The Crown-of-Thorns starfish genus. Acanthaster planci is a voracious Indo-Pacific predator of corals.
Industry:Natural environment
A colourless chromatophore which contains purines, usually guanine, in the form of small, motile crystals in the cell's cytoplasm.
Industry:Natural environment
A giant protozoan protist (Syringammina fragilissima), up to 25 cm in diameter, that inhabits deep-sea habitats. Large aggregations of xenophyophores appear on the Darwin Mounds.
Industry:Natural environment
A model of evolution that assumes slow, steady rates of change, as contrasted with punctuated equilibrium, an evolutionary model in which change occurs in relatively rapid bursts.
Industry:Natural environment
A rock formed by the cooling and crystallisation of molten magma.
Industry:Natural environment
An aggregate of colloidal droplets held together by electrostatic forces. Coacervate droplets may contain a mixture of organic compounds. One theory of the evolution of life is that the formation of coacervates in the primaeval soup was a step towards the development of cells.
Industry:Natural environment
An organism which lives in an environment of high salt concentration. Halophiles have special adaptations to permit them to survive under these conditions.
Industry:Natural environment
