F
Family: In biology, a category that's part
of the scientific system for grouping together related plants, animals,
and other organisms (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus,
species). Family is the category that ranks below an order and above a
genus.
Fat innkeeper worm: A wormlike invertebrate
that burrows in mud; it's called the innkeeper because many other small
animals come to live in its burrow.
Fault: A break in the
rocks of the earth's crust along which movement may occur, causing
earthquakes.
Feather-duster worm: A marine worm that
lives in a leathery tube and sticks out a bright orange or purple crown
of soft, feathery gills. When disturbed, it pulls the gills into the
tube lightning-fast.
Feces: Solid waste that passes out of an
animal's digestive tract.
Fecundity: Number of
eggs an animal produces each reproductive cycle; the potential capacity
of an organism or population.
Feral: Wild, used to
describe animals that are usually not domesticated, like cats or
pigs.
Fertilisation: The process in which the
nuclei of a sperm and ovum join to make a new living thing.
Fertilisers: Chemical used to make plants
grow faster.
Fetch: The distance over the water's
surface that the wind blows to generate waves.
Fillet: To cut
a slice off the side of a fish.
Filter feeder: An
animal that eats by filtering or straining small particles of food from
the water.
Filtration: Separation out of wastes and
turbid water (in aquariums).
Fins: In snorkelling
or diving, footwear used to propel body forward. Sometimes called
flippers.
Fiord: An estuary that occurs in a deep,
narrow, drowned valley, originally formed by glaciers.
First
aid: Immediate help given to a person who has been injured
before they go to hospital.
First order consumer:
Animal that eats a producer.
Fisheries management:
The effort to regulate where, when and how people fish, and how many
fish they catch, to protect fish populations so that people can
continue to fish. Most fisheries management is done by government
agencies such as the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.
Fishery: The organized harvest of a certain
species of fish or shellfish.
Fish pens: Large
tough plastic holding tanks for fish grown in aquaculture.
Fishing
pressure: The amount of fishing for a certain species of fish
or shellfish. If there's heavy fishing pressure on sharks, it means
that lots of sharks are being caught by fishers.
Flares: Safety
devices that are used to attract attention at sea. Can use smoke or
parachute.
Flatfishes: A general term for fishes like
flounder, sole and halibut that are flattened for life on the
seafloor.
Flat porcelain crab: A small crab with a
smooth, shiny shell that lives in the intertidal zone.
Floating
platforms: Structures used by tour operators to moor charter
vessels on a reef also known as pontoons.
Flounder: A fish with
a flattened body adapted for life on the seafloor.
Flukes: The
flat tail flippers of a whale or other marine mammal.
Food
chain: The relationship between plants and animals that shows
who eats what. Energy is transferred from one organism to another
through the food chain.
Food web:
Interconnected food chains in a community; an abstract representation
of the various pathways of energy flow through populations in a
community.
Forward: The front section of a boat. To
move ahead.
Fouling organisms: An assortment of benthic
organism (such as barnacles, sponges and algae) that settle on boats,
clog underwater pipes, and generally cause problems to marine
vessels.
Freeboard: The vertical distance from the
gunwale of a boat to the waterline measured amidships.
Frond: A long, feathery leaf, or the
leaflike blade of a kelp plant or other sea plant.
