Sound is a crucial aspect of the underwater environment for fishes – various species use sound to communicate, identify predators, navigate, and many other activities needed for survival in their habitat. Disruptions and disturbances in the natural soundscape can have important impacts on all these activities and are likely to...
Captive rearing programs (hatcheries) are often used in conservation and management efforts
for at-risk salmonid fish populations. However, hatcheries typically rear juveniles in environments
that contrast starkly with natural conditions, which may lead to phenotypic and/or genetic changes that adversely affect the performance of juveniles upon their release to the...
Disturbance regimes differ in type, magnitude, and frequency, but few field experiments have considered compounded effects of disturbance. In this study, we characterized gap recovery after complete removal of eelgrass (Zostera marina) in Willapa Bay, Washington, USA. In separate experiments, we imposed two disturbance types – shoot damage and shoot...
Cnidarians and their symbiotic dinoflagellates form a productive mutualism that shapes marine environments. In this symbiosis, dinoflagellate species from the family Symbiodiniacea reside within cnidarian host gastrodermal cells and provide the host with photosynthetically fixed carbon in exchange for host metabolites. This nutritional exchange allows both partners to thrive in...
A major goal of the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) has been to understand the impacts of climate change and variability on the coastal ecosystems of the inner shelf of the California Current Large Marine System in particular, and other marine and even nonmarine systems more generally....
Carbonate communities:The activity of anaerobic methane oxidizing microbes facilitates
precipitation of vast quantities of authigenic carbonate at methane seeps. Here we demonstrate
the significant role of carbonate rocks in promoting diversity by providing unique habitat
and food resources for macrofaunal assemblages at seeps on the Costa Rica margin
(400–1850 m)....
Eelgrass (Zostera marina) provides critical ecosystem functions and services and is a vital biogenic habitat on Washington’s marine aquatic reserves but its placement at the land-sea interface leaves it vulnerable to multiple environmental and anthropogenic stressors. In this study, published scientific literature is examined to identify thresholds of environmental stressors...
The 20-year US GLOBEC (Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics)
program examined zooplankton populations and their predators in four coastal
marine ecosystems. Program scientists learned that environmental controls on
zooplankton vital rates, especially the timing and magnitude of reproduction, growth,
life-cycle progression, and mortality, determine species population dynamics,
seasonal and spatial distributions,...
Climate-driven changes in biotic interactions can profoundly alter ecological
communities, particularly when they impact foundation species. In marine systems,
changes in herbivory and the consequent loss of dominant habitat forming species can
result in dramatic community phase shifts, such as from coral to macroalgal
dominance when tropical fish herbivory decreases,...
Benthic infaunal communities are important components of coastal ecosystems. Understanding the relationships between the structure of these communities and characteristics of the habitat in which they live is becoming progressively more important as coastal systems face increasing stress from anthropogenic impacts and changes in climate. To examine how sediment characteristics...
Full Text:
Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 357:109–120
DOI 10.1016/j.jembe.2007.12.031.
Graf G, Rosenberg R. 1997