Sewage and environmental impacts on rocky shores: necessity of identifying relevant spatial scales

Effects of eutrophication, grazing, and algal blooms on rocky shores

Eutrophication can profoundly change rocky shore communities. These changes often cause the replacement of perennial, canopy-forming algae such as Fucus spp. with annual, bloom-forming algae such as Enteromorpha spp. Grazing, however, can counteract eutrophication by eliminating the annual algae’s susceptible recruits. We examine these generalizations across large scales. We use replicated ‘‘bi...

Whole-Community Facilitation Regulates Biodiversity on Patagonian Rocky Shores

BACKGROUND Understanding the factors that generate and maintain biodiversity is a central goal in ecology. While positive species interactions (i.e., facilitation) have historically been underemphasized in ecological research, they are increasingly recognized as playing important roles in the evolution and maintenance of biodiversity. Dominant habitat-forming species (foundation species) buffer...

Linking patterns and processes across scales: the application of scale-transition theory to algal dynamics on rocky shores.

Understanding how species and environments respond to global anthropogenic disturbances is one of the greatest challenges for contemporary ecology. The ability to integrate modeling, correlative and experimental approaches within individual research programs will be key to address large-scale, long-term environmental problems. Scale-transition theory (STT) enables this level of integration, pro...

The Molecular Identification of four Species of Gastropoda on Rocky Shores of the Persian Gulf

In this study molecular identification of four species of Gastropoda have been studied based on mitochondrial genes, COI and 16S rRNA in the present work for the first time in the northern rocky coastal zones of Persian Gulf during years 2013 and 2014. Planaxis sulcatus، Cerithidea cingulata، Siphonaria savignyi and Onchidium peronii Identified. After morphological identification, DNA extractio...

Predation by Crabs on Rocky Shores in North-east Atlantic