Seagrass beds are important coastal habitats that diminishing globally. Nitrogen, a key nutrient, often limits seagrass growth. Nitrogen fixation provides new, bioavailable nitrogen to the plants. This study explores its importance and factors controlling rates in sediments colonized by two dominant taxa Northwest Florida, Thalassia testudinum Halodule wrightii, compared unvegetated sediments. ...

Since 2011, holopelagic Sargassum fluitans and natans have been arriving en masse to the wider Caribbean region West Africa, impacting near-shore habitats coastal communities. We examined impacts of influx on tourism-related businesses through face-to-face interviews focus groups seagrass beds in-water surveys in Turks Caicos Islands (TCI). Substantial accumulations sargassum were found beaches...

The Banc d?Arguin is a marine ecosystem of global conservation significance, the largest bird sanctuary western Africa, supported by one most extensive seagrass beds in world composed three species, two temperate near their southern limit (Zostera noltei and Cymodocea nodosa) tropical at its northern (Halodule wrightii). Here we predict fate this under climate change scenarios during 21st centu...

We examined the patterns of habitat-specific mortality for newly settled red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) using an experimental mesocosm approach. Experiments were designed to analyze prey vulnerability and fish rearing-type (wild-caught or hatchery-reared) in estuarine habitats of varying structural complexity including marsh (Spartina alterniflora Loisel), oyster reef (Crassostrea virginica Gme...

RNA:DNA ratios of larval and juvenile red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) collected from nursery habitats in the Aransas Estuary, Texas, in 1994 were quantified using a highly sensitive ethidium-bromide fluorometric technique. RNA:DNA ratios of wild red drum were evaluated by comparing individual values to a linear regression model derived for starved laboratoryreared red drum. Wild red drum were in...

There was an active cycling of C and N in the sediments underlying a Halodule beaudetti meadow. Intensive C cycling was inferred from high rates of O2 uptake (131 mm01 m-' d-l), CO2 production (199 mm01 m-2 d-l) and sulfate reduction (34 mm01 m-2 d-'). Subsurface input of organic matter was indicated by the high rates of sulfate reduction and the presence of a short-lived organic pool (5 to 10 ...