Marine Animal Diversity and Adaptation to Life in the Seas and Ocean

Introduction
Oceans and seas cover over 70% of the world's surface, and include some of the most productive environments on the planet (Michaelis & Carocci, 2000). There are an estimated 300,000 know marine species and they represent more phyla than in terrestrial environments. Life is unevenly distributed with areas of the deep oceans relatively void of life compared to coastal regions. Species diversity is higher in coastal rather than oceanic regions, and higher in tropical regions than arctic and temerate zones (Andre, 2005). …