Seagrass meadows are highly productive ecosystems that provide ecosystem services to the coastal zone but are declining globally, particularly due to anthropogenic activities that reduce the quantity of light reaching seagrasses, such as dredging, river discharge and eutrophication. Light quality (the spectral composition of the light) is also altered by these anthropogenic stressors as the dif...

Urbanization can considerably affect water reservoirs by, inter alia, input, and accumulation of contaminants including metals. Located in the course of River Cybina, Maltański Reservoir (Western Poland) is an artificial shallow water body built for recreation and sport purposes which undergoes restoration treatment (drainage) every 4 years. In the present study, we demonstrate an accumulation ...

Over the last century, human activities have altered the global nitrogen cycle, and anthropogenic inputs of both inorganic and organic nitrogen species have increased around the world, causing significant changes to the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. The increasing frequency of Pseudo-nitzschia spp. in estuarine and coastal waters reinforces the need to understand better the environmental c...

BACKGROUND Seagrasses are clonal marine plants that form important biotic habitats in many tropical and temperate coastal ecosystems. While there is a reasonable understanding of the dynamics of asexual (vegetative) growth in seagrasses, sexual reproduction and the dispersal pathways of the seeds remain poorly studied. Here we address the potential for a predominantly clonal seagrass, P. austra...

Global change is predicted to promote plant invasions world-wide, reducing biodiversity and ecosystem function. Phenotypic plasticity may influence the ability of introduced plant species to invade and dominate extant communities. However, interpreting differences in plasticity can be confounded by phylogenetic differences in morphology and physiology. Here we present a novel case investigating...

BACKGROUND There is growing interest in the natural and constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment. While nutrient removal in wetlands has been extensively investigated, information regarding the degradation of the pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) has only recently been emerging. PPCPs are widely distributed in urban wastewaters and can be removed to some extent by the cons...

Vegetation type plays an important role in regulating the temporal and spatial variation of soil respiration. Therefore, vegetation patchiness may cause high uncertainties in the estimates of soil respiration for scaling field measurements to ecosystem level. Few studies provide insights regarding the influence of vegetation types on soil respiration and its temperature sensitivity in an estuar...

Seed predation is an important process governing the dynamics of many plant populations. We assessed seed mortality due to predation in the seagrass Posidonia australis by identifying predators and quantifying predation events using underwater video cameras, laboratory and field observations, and field tethering experiments in shallow-water habitats off Rottnest Island, Western Australia in 200...