Seagrass beds and salt marshes are important in the life histories of many fish, invertebrates, and aquatic birds, such that population size and production of these organisms can be limited by the loss of these habitats. Therefore, restoring seagrass or salt marsh would be expected to benefit species dependent on these resources. Following the ‘North Cape’ oil spill of January 1996 in Rhode Isl...

Predator-prey interactions in salt-marsh ecosystems are driven primarily by interactions among tidal dynamics, local physiography, and macrophyte density. Distinct seaward-to-landward predation gradients have been described for the continuous and expansive meadows of Spartina alterniflora on the Atlantic coast of the United States. In the northern Gulf of Mexico, Juncus roemerianus dominates an...

Mid to high-latitude marine ecosystems are characterized by strong intra-seasonal variability in productivity across multiple trophic levels. It is understood that climate variability, as well as projected climate change, is likely to cause substantial changes in the timing of key seasonal events, such as the spring phytoplankton bloom, dates of diapause for zooplankton, or nesting dates in sea...

Regime shifts have been reported in many marine ecosystems, and are often expressed as an abrupt change occurring in multiple physical and biological components of the system. In the Gulf of Alaska, a regime shift in the late 1970s was observed, indicated by an abrupt increase in sea surface temperature and major shifts in the catch of many fish species. A thorough understanding of the extent a...

The concept of consilience, describing the 'jumping together' of different scientific disciplines, and recently revived in a book of the same title, authored by B.D. Wilson, is presented, along with some of its implications for work conducted by oceanographers, marine biologists and fisheries and social scientists in the Gulf of Guinea area. It is suggested that maintenance and analysis of time...

Two mass-balance trophic models are constructed to describe the Gulf of Thailand ecosystem (10–50 m depth): one model pertains to the initial phase of fisheries development, and the other to when the resources were severely depleted. The two phases are compared, and changes brought about by fishing discussed. A dynamic simulation model, Ecosim, is then used successfully to reproduce the 1980 st...

We evaluated the impact of marine materials on the diet and abundance of arthropodivorous lizards inhabiting islands and the coast of the Gulf of California. Here, marine materials are brought onto land by seabirds and by tidal action, and both subsidy pathways cause arthropod abundance to increase. We evaluated Uta stansburiana (side-blotched lizard) diets in three habitats defined by having: ...

Identifying key taxa in the response of ecosystems to perturbations relies on quantifying both their sensitivity to stressors and their importance in the overall web of interactions. If sensitive taxa occupy key network positions, then they may decrease the capacity of ecosystems to resist perturbations. Despite widespread concern for coastal marshes after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill i...

The niche overlap between trophic groups of Chironomidae larvae in different habitats was observed between trophic groups and between different environments in Neotropical floodplain. For the evaluation we used the index of niche overlap (CXY) and analysis of trophic networks, both from the types and amount of food items identified in the larval alimentary canal. In all environments, the larvae...

The bioaccumulations of metals Cu, Cd, Ni, Cr, Co, Mn, Zn and Fe were measured in bivalves, Cerastoderma glucaum, and four species of fishes including Alburnus chalcoides, Liza aurata, Rutilus frisii and Sander lucioperca from various trophic levels of the Caspian food web. The concentrations of Cd, Cr, Co and Ni in most samples of fish were below the detection limits; while the concentrations ...