Seafloor organisms are vital for healthy marine ecosystems, contributing to elemental cycling, benthic remineralization, and ultimately sequestration of carbon. Deep-sea life is primarily reliant on the export flux of particulate organic carbon from the surface ocean for food, but most ocean biogeochemistry models predict global decreases in export flux resulting from 21st century anthropogenic...

We examined changes In the levels of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) during incubation experiments with 4 conspicuous sponge species from Caribbean coral reefs, mangroves, or seagrass beds (Chondrilla nucula, ?Pseudaxinella zeai, Oligoceras violacea, Plakortis halichondroides). DIN accumulation in the incubation water was detected for all the species, but no significant DIN concentration cha...

The direct harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) on benthic and planktonic organisms have been well studied in aquatic systems. Less clear, however, is how UVR might affect aquatic communities through its effects on trophic interactions. The focus of this study was twofold: first, to examine the direct effect of UVR on benthic invertebrates and epilithon, the rock-dwelling matrix of al...

Aquatic habitats characterized by directional water flow (lotic environments) pose numerous challenges to their inhabitants, including the constant threat of dislodgement and downstream transport. As a result, many organisms exhibit morphological and/or behavioral adaptations that facilitate midwater or benthic station holding in these environments, such as the ventral sucker disc of armored ca...

 The study investigated the stomach content of Sillago sihama in Hormuzgan Province waters located in the northern Persian Gulf from October 2009 to March 2010. The stomach analysis was carried out using frequency of occurrence and numeric methods. Diatoms, blue- green algae and dinoflagellates constituted main food of plant origin. Diatoms were found to be the most preferable food of...

Marine organisms have developed a wide variety of protective strategies to thrive in their native environments. These biological materials, although formed from simple biopolymer and biomineral constituents, take on many intricate and effective designs. The specific environmental conditions that shape all marine organisms have helped modify these materials into their current forms: complete hyd...

Terrestrial runoff after heavy rainfall can increase nutrient concentrations in waters overlying coral reefs that otherwise experience low nutrient levels. Field measurements during a runoff event showed a sharp increase in nitrate (75-fold), phosphate (31-fold) and ammonium concentrations (3-fold) in waters overlying a fringing reef at the island of Curaçao (Southern Caribbean). To understand ...

Benthic diatoms are the main component in many aquatic ecosystems such as streams, creeks and rivers, and they function as important primary producers and chemical modulators for other organisms in the ecosystems. In this study, the composition of benthic diatoms was investigated and further explored the primary physicals and chemicals affecting their temporal variations in the upper Han River,...

Parasites, in particular trematodes, are unseen but ubiquitous components of marine intertidal ecosystems. Although parasites are known to affect population dynamics and food web structure, their potential function as an unrecognized path of energy flow in these ecosystems is yet to be quantified. We use published data on rates at which trematodes produce free-swimming infective larvae (cercari...

We summarized studies on the impacts and scale effects of negative (competition, predation, parasitism, herbivory) and positive (mutualism, commensalism, indirect facilitation) species interactions in freshwater benthic habitats since ,1986 and focused on organisms with mainly or entirely aquatic life cycles. Benthologists publishing in J-NABS have contributed robustly to our overall knowledge ...