Food availability, competition, habitat complexity, and territorial damselfish shape foraging decisions of herbivorous coral reef fishes. However, relatively little is known about how predators affect herbivore diet selection. We examined diets of 2 common reef herbivores, Sparisoma aurofrenatum and Acanthurus coeruleus, in the Florida Keys, across sites of varying predator biomass. We used sta...

Periphyton is a key component of shallow littoral zones of lakes and streams because it is an important source of primary production and a food resource for herbivores. Meiofauna are abundant in periphyton, but macroinvertebrate grazer (macrograzers) effects on periphytic meiofauna have not been studied so far. We used a spatially structured field experiment (hierarchical nested design consisti...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are important below-ground carbon (C) sinks that can be sensitive to increased nitrogen (N) availability. The abundance of AM fungi (AMF) was estimated in maple (Acer spp.) fine roots following more than a decade of experimental additions of N designed to simulate chronic atmospheric N deposition. Abundance of AMF was measured by staining and ocular estimation,...

Global declines in insects have sparked wide interest among scientists, politicians, and the general public. Loss of insect diversity and abundance is expected to provoke cascading effects on food webs and to jeopardize ecosystem services. Our understanding of the extent and underlying causes of this decline is based on the abundance of single species or taxonomic groups only, rather than chang...

Photosynthetic microbial biofilms are an important functional component of rocky intertidal habitats worldwide. The abundance of organisms within these films varies both seasonally and according to vertical emersion gradients. However, the effects of horizontal gradients of wave exposure, which have a key influence on macrobiotic assemblages, have received little attention. Here, we examine the...

The abundance of gas phase nitric acid in the upper troposphere is overestimated by global chemistry-transport models, especially during the spring and summer seasons. Recent aircraft data obtained over the central US show that mineral aerosols were abundant in the upper troposphere during spring. Chemical reactions on mineral dust may provide an important sink for nitric acid. In regions where...

Compost amendment to grassland is a novel strategy proposed and demonstrated to increase ecosystem carbon (C) storage. However, the effects of compost applications on biomass production and plant diversity are not well known. We assessed impacts of a onetime compost amendment over 4 yr on plant dynamics in two grazed grassland ecosystems in California: a coastal prairie and valley grassland. Th...

The burrowing and movement ability of the New Zealand cockle Austrovenus stutchburyi is reduced when infected by echinostome trematodes. Previous experimental evidence from a single site suggests that this parasite-induced behavioural change of a key bivalve can affect the structure of the surrounding benthic community. By using multiple regression analyses on data collected from 17 intertidal ...

An axiomatic feature of food consumption by animals is that intake rate and prey abundance are positively related. While this has been demonstrated rigorously for large herbivores, it is apparent from patch selection trials that grazers paradoxically tend to prefer short, sparse swards to tall, dense swards. Indeed, migratory herbivores often shift from areas of high to low sward biomass during...

Biogeosciences Discussions This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Biogeosciences (BG). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in BG if available. Abstract The diversity and distribution of metazooplankton across the Mediterranean Sea was studied along a 3000 km long transect from the eastern to the western basins during the BOUM cruise in summer 2008. Metazooplank...