Showing papers in "Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology in 2006"

TL;DR: Examination of the properties of this ‘zero-adjusted’ Bray–Curtis measure suggests a mechanism for practical classification of the plethora of resemblance measures defined in the literature, and answers questions about whether the different information extracted by some coefficients is more, or less, helpful to the final biological interpretation.

TL;DR: The major conclusion is that, in contrast to what has been reported in much of the literature on food webs in seagrass meadows, a diverse grazing pathway continues to represent an important conduit for the transfer of energy from the primary producers to higher order consumers.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that acidification of the samples results in a decrease in carbon stable isotope values for sedimentary organic matter, suspended particulate organic Matter, plankton and invertebrates with carbonated structures, so sample acidification for carbon analysis in these compartments should be avoided.

TL;DR: It is found that silt-sized and nutrient-rich sediments can stress corals after short exposure, while sandy sediments or nutrient-poor silts affect corals to a lesser extent, will help refining predictions of sedimentation threats to coral reefs at given environmental conditions.

TL;DR: The current distribution patterns of zoobenthos are illustrated, using marine, limnic and non-indigenous examples of structure and ecosystem functions, and polychaetes, molluscs and echinoderms are dramatically reduced in numbers from the south to the north.

TL;DR: Since reef macrofauna include many important fish prey species, oyster reef restoration may have the potential to augment fish production by increasing fish prey densities and fish foraging efficiency.

TL;DR: The results of temperature experiments suggest that the photosynthetic condition of all seagrass species tested are likely to suffer irreparable effects from short-term or episodic changes in seawater temperatures as high as 40-45 [deg]C.

TL;DR: Examination of the effects of individual members of the two dominant functional groups of the Macoma balthica community on fluxes of nutrients and dissolved organic carbon between sediment and overlying water found them to have different effects.

TL;DR: Coupling of the trophic levels observed with the community biomass structure revealed that most of the benthic biomass derives its food from detritic sedimented POM and/or microphytobenthos, with interface filter feeders, selective deposit feeders and Carnivores making up to 14% of the total biomass.

TL;DR: Sponges on coral reefs exhibit a consistent and significant pattern of greater biomass, rates of growth, and feeding, as does their food supply, with increasing depth, suggesting that food supply and, therefore, bottom-up processes significantly influence the distribution and abundance of sponges in these habitats.

TL;DR: The findings that dugongs frequently undertake macro-scale movements have implications for management at a range of scales, and strengthen the aerial survey and genetic evidence for management and monitoring at ecological scales that cross jurisdictions.

TL;DR: The present study indicates the value of indicators of benthic change for making management decisions at the various scales, and further validation is required especially, for example, where one indicator over-estimates the ecological status for poor areas and underestimates it for good areas.

TL;DR: Despite likely adaptations to natural sediment dynamics, the high intensity of sediment deposition, cumulative spatial scope, and unnaturally coarse shelly character of the Bogue Banks beach nourishment resulted in a perturbation that exceeded biotic resistance and degraded the trophic transfer function of this highly productive habitat for at least one warm season.

TL;DR: This work analysed biomass, production and size structure of two communities from a muddy and a sandy habitat, in relation to quantified gradients of trawling disturbance on real fishing grounds, and used an allometric relationship between body mass and individual production to biomass ratio to estimate community production.

TL;DR: With the exception of 15 degrees C, the O/N ratios of large size sea cucumbers was close to 20 across the temperatures used in this study, indicating that their energy Source was a combination of lipid and protein, while on the other hand, apart from small individuals maintained at 10 degreesC, theO/N ratio of the medium and small sea Cucumbers were close to 10, indicatingthat protein was their major energy source.

TL;DR: The effects of sediments and its interaction with molluscan grazing were highly variable but often large, particularly on the attachment of zygotes to primary substratum.

TL;DR: Second-stage MDS, which can be thought of as an MDS plot of the pairwise similarities between MDS plots, is used to illustrate certain forms of interaction, namely those evidenced by changing assemblage patterns over many time periods, for replicate sites from different experimental conditions (types of ‘Beyond BACI’ design) – or changing multivariate structure over space, at many observed times.

TL;DR: The results suggest that the larvae of B. neritina can discriminate between biofilmmed and clean surfaces and between biofilms developed under different tidal zones.

TL;DR: High survival and growth rates may compensate for years with low recruitment, and may therefore allow a fast population increase, which may lead to restrictions on habitat use by native mussels in the Wadden Sea.

TL;DR: It is concluded that predators, and particularly rock lobsters, exert significant predation mortality on H. erythrogramma in Tasmanian marine reserves, and that adult sea urchins are more vulnerable than smaller cryptic individuals.

TL;DR: The conclusion is that six species of fucoid algae co-occur on intertidal reef platforms in southern New Zealand and have no functional equivalents in their areas of dominance, the autogenic engineers or foundation species on which most other species in their communities rely.

TL;DR: DGGE fingerprinting and phylogenetic analysis were used to reveal the community structure and diversity of the predominant bacteria associated with the four sponges Stelletta tenui, Halichrondria, Dysidea avara and Craniella australiensis from the South China Sea for the first time.

TL;DR: In this article, the transfer of fatty acid (FA) biomarkers was assessed by an experimental food chain comprising three trophic levels: leaves of the mangrove Avicennia marina, the grapsid crab Parasesarma erythodactyla, and the blue swimmer crab Portunus pelagicus.

TL;DR: Mytilus will not eliminate Perna and that co-existence is possible through partial habitat segregation driven by recruitment limitation of PernA on the high shore and post-settlement effects on Mytilus on the low shore, according to mechanisms excluding species differed among zones.

TL;DR: The presence of at least one MAA in all symbiont and host fractions analyzed serves to highlight the importance of MAAs, and in particular the role of mycosporine-glycine, as photoprotectants in the coral reef environment.

TL;DR: Coral feeding rates are directly proportional to ambient zooplankton concentrations and may vary by as much as 50% over a lunar cycle, suggesting that corals must cope with major swings in sources of fixed carbon and nutrients over relatively short timescales.

TL;DR: The results show that the glass eel migratory behavior, through locomotor activity and salinity preference, may be controlled by interacting physiological and environmental factors and may be adaptive by limiting the probability of death due to exhaustion.

TL;DR: It is argued that the spatial scale or magnitude of disturbance is key to the development of opportunistic responses, and that the scale of disturbance may be particularly important in determining (a) the levels of resources made available and (b) the magnitude of release from competitive interactions, which permit opportunists to flourish.

TL;DR: Artificial units of habitat (AUHs) made of nylon pot-scourers were used to test predictions from various models of succession and few individual taxa showed consistent patterns of changing abundance with length of deployment, but different types of organisms showed markedly different patterns of arrival.

TL;DR: The results indicate that the general effects of seafloor habitat complexity on juvenile fish survivorship may be broadly applicable, but that the interaction of particular habitats with search tactics of predators as well as habitat affinities and avoidance responses of prey can produce differences among species that contribute to variable mortality.