Wrack (dead, washed-up seaweed and seagrass) buried in soft substrata causes increased organic content and alters the physical structure of sediments. These effects may influence the types and relative abundances of species in the sediment. Such influences can be expected to vary according to the type and organic content of the sediment. In this study, wrack was buried in 3 mudflats and 2 inter...

A field experiment was carried out to test the effect of pore water salinity on the macrobenthic assemblages in an estuarine region of the Tagus estuary (Portugal) subjected to wide fluctuations in salinity. The conditions at the experimental site ranged from freshwater (minimum salinity 0.2) to mesohaline (maximum salinity 15.3). The experimental site was affected by an unexpected deposition o...

Unlike the advances generated on land, the knowledge of global diversity patterns in marine ecosystems is limited to a small number of studies. For sandy beaches, which dominate the world's ocean shores, previous meta-analyses highlighted the role of beach morphodynamics in explaining species richness patterns. Oceanographic variables and historical processes have not been considered, even thou...

Mantis Shrimp Gonodactylus platysoma was observed during a survey for seaweed-related macrofauna from the intertidal region of Andamans after century. The specimen collected using scoop net, identified based on Kemp (1913) and Ahyong (2001). detailed description, images illustrations are given in this article. reappearance G. century highlights potential revealing rich biodiversity Andaman need...

OBJECTIVES In this study we investigated the dynamics of meiofaunal and macrofaunal communities in artificial water-filled tree holes. The abundances and, for the first time, biomasses and secondary production rates of these communities were examined. The experimental set-up consisted of 300 brown plastic cups placed in temperate mixed forests and sampled five times over a period of 16 months t...

To investigate factors related to the distribution of intertidal species, and specific predictions of the swash exclusion hypothesis for exposed sandy beaches, we compared the burrowing abilities and swash behavior of three species of anomuran crabs in the superfamily Hippoidea (Emerita analoga, Blepharipoda occidentalis and Lepidopa californica) which commonly inhabit the intertidal and shallo...

Bottom trawling causes physical disturbance to sediments particularly in shelf areas. The disturbance due to trawling is most significant in deeper areas with softer sediments where levels of natural disturbance due to wave and tidal action are low. In heavily fished areas, trawls may impact the same area of seabed more than four times per year. A single pass of a beam trawl, the heaviest gear ...