The distribution pattern of Bullacta exarata was studied in different seasons of 2004 at south shore of Hangzhou Bay, China. We found that the distribution pattern of B. exarata was aggregated in each season by Taylor's power regression and Iwao's plot regresses methods (P < 0.001). Based on two-way ANOVA analysis, the results indicated that the densities were significantly affected by the fact...

Research so far has provided little evidence that benthic biogeochemical cycling is affected by ocean acidification under realistic climate change scenarios. We measured nutrient exchange and sediment community oxygen consumption (SCOC) rates to estimate nitrification in natural coastal permeable and fine sandy sediments under pre-phytoplankton bloom and bloom conditions. Ocean acidification, a...

 Benthic invertebrates are a well-established target in environmental quality status evaluations. The AMBI (AZTI's Marine Biotic Index) was developed to determine the impacts and the quality status of soft-bottom marine benthic communities. The aim of this study was investigating multivariate pattern of benthic invertebrate community and application of AMBI (AZTI's Marine Biotic Index) for dete...

We measured monthly dissolved oxygen (DO) changes in situ benthic incubations from March 2001 to October 2002 in a Posidonia oceanica meadow and unvegetated sediments of Magalluf Bay (Mallorca Island, Spain) to determine gross primary production (GPP), community respiration (R), and net community production (NCP). From June 2001 to October 2002, we also measured fluxes of dissolved inorganic ca...

Coral mass-spawning represents a spectacular annual, short-term, fertilization event of many oligotrophic reef communities. The spawning event in 2005 at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, was followed by an intense bloom of benthic dinoflagellates. Within a day from the first observed spawning, the primary production of the water column and the benthic compartment increased by factors of 4 and ...

Changes to benthic infauna caused by scallop dredging at a site in Port Phillip Bay, southeastern Australia, were examined experimentally using a BACl (before, after, control, impact) design. The experimental dredging was undertaken by commercial fishermen and was typical of normal commercial operations in its spatial extent, intensity and duration Changes to benthic community structure followi...

Bioturbation activity of sediment-dwelling organisms promotes the release of contaminants across the benthic-pelagic ecosystem boundary, thereby affecting the exposure to and uptake of sediment associated contaminants at the sediment-water interface by themselves and the entire community around them. This way, bioturbation activity may contribute to species specific sensitivities to sediment as...

Herbicides pose a potential threat to aquatic ecosystems, especially to phototrophic organisms such as benthic diatoms. Benthic diatoms may be a valuable indicator of the toxic impacts of herbicides in aquatic systems. However, this requires information on the herbicide sensitivity of a wide range of freshwater benthic diatom taxa. Unfortunately this information is only available for a limited ...

Phosphorus release from sediments can exacerbate the effect of eutrophication in coastal marine ecosystems. The flux of phosphorus from marine sediments to the overlying water is highly dependent on the redox conditions at the sediment-water interface. Bacteria are key players in the biological processes that release or retain phosphorus in marine sediments. To gain more insight in the role of ...

Contents 1. Introduction 2. The pelagic food web 2.1 The structure of the pelagic food web. 2.2 Phytoplankton community structure. 2.2.1 Bottom up determinants of phytoplankton size structure. 2.2.2 Top-down determinants of phytoplankton size structure. 2.3 Zooplankton of marine pelagic food webs 2.3.1 Protozoa. 2.3.2 Copepoda. 2.3.3 Tunicata. 2.3.4 Mesozooplankton feeding selectivity. 2.3.5 He...