221 Results Found

Recent investigations at previously unexplored localities on the Mexican coast have confirmed the high taxonomic potential of benthic marine diatom assemblages (BMDA) in the region. An exploratory study of epiphytic diatoms of macroalgae in the Revil...

Studies on marine benthic diatoms in environments contaminated by metals are scarce. The typical structure of benthic diatom assemblages (species richness, diversity, dominance, dominant taxa) from undisturbed environments may be used as reference fo...

Given the wide usage of Roundup, a common herbicide, the impacts of its presence in ecological communities are of great interest. Many studies have investigated the effects of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, on different factions of an...

Conserving and enhancing freshwater biodiversity are global issues to ensure ecosystem integrity and sustainability. To meet this, it is critical to understand how the biological assemblages are determined by environmental gradients in different spat...

The colonization of artificial structures by benthic organisms in the marine realm is known to be affected by the general trophic patterns of the biogeographical zone and the prevailing environmental traits at the local scale. The present work aims t...

Tropical rivers are strongly influenced by stormwaters, pollutants and agro-pastoral activities. These systems are no longer able to maintain their native biota. Therefore, it seems important to understand how biological assemblages are driven by env...

This work completes and updates the information about the diversity and distribution of benthic assemblages in an Antarctic fjord (South Bay, Antarctic Peninsula) 40 years after the first and only community-level study was conducted there. To determi...

Mining activities are among the most long-lasting anthropogenic pressures on streams and rivers. Therefore, detecting different benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the areas recovered from mining activities is essential to establish conservation...

Benthic algae, especially diatoms, are commonly used to assess water quality in rivers. However, algal-based assessments are challenging at the river system scale because longitudinal variation in physical habitat conditions may obscure algal respons...

The seabed of the Pontine Archipelago (Tyrrhenian Sea) insular shelf is peculiar as it is characterized by a mixed siliciclastic–carbonate sedimentation. In order to reconstruct the Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental evolution of the Pontine Archipel...

Current knowledge of the microbial diversity of shallow-water hydrothermal vents is still limited. Recent evidence suggests that these peculiar and heterogeneous systems might host highly diversified microbial assemblages with novel or poorly charact...

Southern Patagonian ecosystems are characterized by high environmental heterogeneity. Within this context, Inútil Bay exhibits a complex geomorphology and only fragmentary information on its biodiversity, despite a long history of resource exp...

Ice shelves cover ~1.6 million km² of the Antarctic continental shelf and are sensitive indicators of climate change. With ice-shelf retreat, aphotic marine environments transform into new open-water spaces of photo-induced primary production and ass...

Sharm El-Luli, located along the southern Red Sea coast of Egypt, is a semi-enclosed, shallow, mangrove-fringed lagoon characterized by limited hydrodynamic exchange, high salinity, and low terrigenous input. This study investigates the influence of...

Testate amoebae are widely used as proxies in paleoecological reconstructions of lacustrine environments; however, our knowledge on their distribution along depth gradients are limited. This study investigates the distribution of benthic testate amoe...

A sediment bypassing plant based on innovative jet pump, ejectors, has been tested in the first-of-a-kind demo application at the harbor of Cervia (Italy, Northern Adriatic Sea). The ejector is a jet pump aimed to reduce sediment accumulation in navi...

Many studies show that habitat complexity or habitat diversity plays a major role in biodiversity throughout different spatial scales: as structural heterogeneity increases, so does the number of available (micro-) habitats for the potential species...

The Sub-Saharan alpine freshwater biodiversity is currently impacted by human settlements, climate change, agriculture, and mining activities. Because of the limited biodiversity studies in the region, a better understanding is needed of the importan...

This study investigated the influence of physicochemical water parameters on benthic macroinvertebrate communities across 11 sampling stations located in the Western, Antalya, and Eastern Mediterranean Basins of Türkiye. Field studies were condu...

Numerous community indices have been developed to quantify the various aspects of communities. However, indices including functional aspects have been less focused on. Here, we examined how community composition varies in response to the environment...

Sandy beaches represent two-thirds of littoral zones worldwide. Complex factors such as winds, waves, and sediment characterize this environment. Ciliophora is one of the most diversified unicellular eukaryotic phyla and, in marine sediments, can rea...

Scavenging fauna plays an integral role in ecosystem functioning, nutrient cycling and circulating organic matter. Thus, baseline data of scavenger assemblages on the NW coast of the Iberian Peninsula that provides information on the abundance of spe...

Municipal wastewater effluent (MWWE) is a common source of nutrient enrichment and provides a route for emerging substances of concern (ESOCs) to enter aquatic systems. Community composition and abundance metrics of benthic macroinvertebrates are com...

Seagrass meadows are productive ecosystems and many animal species are dependent on them, including a wide diversity of invertebrates. This study aims to explore spatial diversity patterns of benthic invertebrates associated with Zostera noltei. Thre...

This study assessed natural variation in the macroinvertebrate assemblages (MIB) and water quality in one of the main basins with the largest agricultural activities in Chile (Aconcagua River Basin). We sampled throughout the annual cycle; nine sampl...

This study presents novel information on sponge (Porifera) colonization of artificial substrates in the framework of the LIFE EU Strong Sea Life Project, focusing on the northwestern Sardinian Sea (Western Mediterranean Sea). Five abandoned, lost, or...

With its geographically isolated location and geological history, the Mediterranean Sea harbors well-known biodiversity hotspots, such as Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows. Recently, long-living mats formed by the fleshy red alga Phyllophora crispa...

Coral reefs are under increasing pressure from a variety of stressors, highlighting the need for information about the status of coral reef communities including the distribution, abundance and composition of juvenile and adult coral assemblages. Thi...

Changes in coral reef health and status are commonly reported using hard coral cover, however such changes may also lead to substantial shifts in coral community composition. Here we assess the extent to which coral communities departed from their pr...

Mass mortality events and anthropogenic impacts affecting Paramuricea clavata (Risso, 1826) have been increasingly documented during the last decades. These impacts have enhanced the settling of epibiont organisms on injured colonies. This epibiosis...

This Special Issue intended to collect articles focusing on the assessment of the possible effects of climate changes on aquatic species inhabiting inland waters all over the world, including the possible synergistic effects in combination with other...

Global climate change might result in permafrost thaw and the formation of thermokarst landscapes that release long-term carbon stocks as greenhouse into the atmosphere, thereby initiating a positive climate feedback. These processes are mediated by...

While benthic characteristics of coral reef habitats are a major driver of the structure of coral reef fish assemblages, non-reef habitats adjacent to coral reefs (e.g., mangroves, seagrass beds, and macroalgal beds) can affect reef fish assemblages....

Under the EU Water Framework Directive, ecological assessment and management are based on type-specific reference conditions. In the EU it may be difficult to find sites in large rivers with at least near-natural conditions, though this is not the ca...

The architectural complexity of coral-reef habitat plays an important role in determining the assemblage structure of reef fish. We investigated associations between the reef habitats and fish assemblages in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) u...

The biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationship has been studied extensively for the past 30 years, mainly in terrestrial plant ecosystems using experimental approaches. Field studies in aquatic systems are scarce, and considering pri...

Marine coastal areas are highly dynamic and fragile environments characterised by a complex interplay of biological, physical, and chemical factors. These areas are also affected by anthropogenic activities with the discharge of organic and inorganic...

The importance of cold-water blue carbon as biological carbon pumps that sequester carbon into ocean sediments is now being realised. Most polar blue carbon research to date has focussed on deep water, yet the highest productivity is in the shallows....

A comprehensive set of physicochemical variables in near-bottom water and surface sediments, as well as the soft-bottom macrozoobenthic assemblages were investigated at six sites across the Yundang Lagoon (Southeast China) in November 2012. This lago...

The ecology of benthic diatoms is scarce in diatom reviews, and it seems that the loss of interest in their local ecology (populations–communities) coincides with an increase in metacommunity studies. We include a review of the latter to highli...

This study provides the first comprehensive characterization of benthic macrofaunal communities in the Loukkos estuary, highlighting their spatial and seasonal variability and the environmental factors shaping their structure. A total of 47 species w...

Artificial substrates have been implemented to overcome the problems associated with quantitative sampling of marine epifaunal assemblages. These substrates provide artificial habitats that mimic natural habitat features, thereby standardizing the sa...

Fungi are a ubiquitous component of marine systems, but their quantitative relevance, biodiversity and ecological role in benthic deep-sea ecosystems remain largely unexplored. In this study, we investigated fungal abundance, diversity and assemblage...

Analyses of benthic foraminiferal assemblages were carried out on sediment samples collected in the Gulf of Patti (NE Sicily, Tyrrhenian Sea), where high sedimentation rates in front of the Mazzarrà River led to the growth of a prodelta. The frequenc...

Early Pliocene sedimentary deposits are exposed at the surface along the James and York Rivers, across southeastern Virginia. The Zanclean age (5.33–3.60 Ma) Sunken Meadow Member of the Yorktown Formation records a relatively large-scale marine...

Stylasterid corals are known to be fundamental habitat-formers in both deep and shallow waters. Their tridimensional structure enhances habitat complexity by creating refuges for a variety of organisms and by acting as basibionts for many other inver...

Living benthic foraminifera (>63 µm) were studied to characterize the continental slope of the Potiguar Basin (SW Atlantic). Foraminifers from the surface (0–2 cm), subsurface (2–5 cm), and integrated (0–5 cm) sediment layers were analyzed to veri...

The middle–upper Eocene successions of northwest Fayum, Egypt, provide a crucial archive for reconstructing paleoenvironmental conditions and paleobiogeographical patterns of the southern Tethys realm. Stratigraphically, the investigated sectio...

For the tidal energy industry to move forward to commercialisation, understanding the interaction between the environment and tidal energy converters (TEC) is essential. The benthic environment may be particularly vulnerable to development by changin...

Predicting anthropogenic actions resulting in undesirable changes in aquatic systems is crucial for the development of effective and sustainable water management strategies. Due to the co-occurrence of stressors and a lack of appropriate data, the ef...