Increasing demand for biofuel has intensified land-use change (LUC) for sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) expansion in Brazil. Assessments of soil quality (SQ) response to this LUC are essential for quantifying and monitoring sustainability of sugarcane production over time. Since there is not a universal methodology for assessing SQ, we conducted a field-study at three sites within the largest...

Plantain (Musa paradisiaca AAB) is one of the main staple food crops in tropical areas, particularly Caribbean region. Therefore, supporting a sustainable production plantain this zone crucial to secure and provide income millions people. We hypothesized that agroecological practices based on multi-functionality biodiversity preserve soil should i) increase macrofauna abundance, ii) enhance che...

Agroforestry practices (AFPs) are typical solutions for low-input agricultural systems. AFPs play critical roles in the improvement of abundance and biomass soil invertebrates, which necessary long-term properties. The overall objective present study was to investigate spatial temporal dynamics macrofauna home gardens coffee-based agroforestry systems relate it with a range physico-chemical par...

Sea-level rise induced by climate change may have significant impacts on the ecosystem functions and ecosystem services provided by intertidal sediment ecosystems. Accelerated sea-level rise is expected to lead to steeper beach slopes, coarser particle sizes and increased wave exposure, with consequent impacts on intertidal ecosystems. We examined the relationships between abundance, biomass, a...

The bottom water in the 4300 m deep Lower St. Lawrence Estuary (LSLE) is persistently hypoxic in contrast to the normoxic bottom waters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL). We photographed the seabed at 11 stations in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence (EGSL) during the summers 2006 and 2007 and analysed the images to identify bioturbation traces (lebensspuren) and benthic macrofauna. The objec...

The polychaete Sabellaria alveolata (Linnaeus, 1767) is an important ecosystem engineer building reef structures which add to the topographic complexity in colonized areas. In Europe, the most extensive reef formation is located in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel (France). Since 2006, Sabellaria bio-constructions have developed on hard substrates along the west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula betw...