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Coral reef split level on the Philippines

Shallow seas

Shallow seas cover the continental shelves. These sunlit, or neritic, waters are where the oceans are most productive, where biomass is highest and where all the major sea fisheries of the world take their catches. The shallow seas include warm tropical waters, temperate seas like those round the UK and the chilly waters of the Arctic and Southern Oceans.

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What grows here?

What lives here?

Mammals

Birds

Reptiles

Cartilaginous fish

Ray-finned fishes

Lobe-finned fishes

Lampreys

Cephalopods

Crabs, shrimp and krill

Merostomata

Snails and slugs

Jellyfish

Trilobites

Where you find Shallow seas

Map showing the location of the Shallow seas habitat

About Shallow seas

The neritic zone, also called coastal waters, the coastal ocean or the sublittoral zone, is the part of the ocean extending from the low tide mark to the edge of the continental shelf, with a relatively shallow depth extending to about 200 meters (110 fathoms or 667 feet). The neritic zone has generally well-oxygenated water, low water pressure, and relatively stable temperature and salinity levels. These, combined with presence of light and the resulting photosynthetic life, such as phytoplankton and floating sargassum, make the neritic zone the location of the majority of sea life.

Zooplankton, free-floating creatures ranging from microscopic foraminiferans to small fish and shrimp, live in this zone, and together with the phytoplankton form the base of the food pyramid that supports most of the world's great fishing areas

At the edge of the neritic zone, the continental slope begins, descending from the continental shelf to the abyssal plain and the pelagic zone.

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Behaviours

Useful behaviours for this habitat

Ecozones

Ecozones where this habitat is found

Habitats

Other Marine habitats

BBC News about Shallow seas

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