The extent to which Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) benefit corals is contentious. On one hand, MPAs could enhance coral growth and survival through increases in herbivory within their borders; on the other, they are unlikely to prevent disturbances, such as terrestrial runoff, that originate outside their boundaries. We examined the effect of spatial protection and terrestrial sediment on the be...

Current concern about biodiversity change associated with human impacts has raised scientific interest in the role of biodiversity in ecosystem functioning. However, studies on this topic face the challenge of evaluating and separating the relative contributions of biodiversity and environment to ecosystem functioning in natural environments. To investigate this problem, we collected sediment c...

Although much research has focused on acoustic mapping and exploration of the benthic environment, little is known about the acoustic ecology of benthic organisms, particularly benthic crustaceans. Through the use of a coupled audio–video system, a hydrophone array, and an autonomous recording unit, we tested several hypotheses about the field acoustics of a benthic marine crustacean, Hemisquil...

Cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, commonly use their visually-guided, rapid adaptive camouflage for multiple tactics to avoid detection or recognition by predators. Two common tactics are background matching and resembling an object (masquerade) in the immediate area. This laboratory study investigated whether cuttlefish preferentially camouflage themselves to resemble a three-dimensional (3D) obj...

Oxygen deficiency in the near-bottom water associated with eutrophication has been shown to have negative impacts on marine benthos in many Scandinavian waters. In the present study, the benthic fauna and the sedimentary habitat have been studied between 7 and 34 m depth; at 14 stations in three Swedish fjords in four different years, and at 12 stations along the Swedish coast in three differen...

[1] Stable isotope and elemental measurements were conducted on foraminifera from a sequence of calcareous pelagic ooze at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1209 to document the thermal evolution of the North Pacific water column over Shatsky Rise and to address long-standing questions about the nature of oceanic circulation in the early Paleogene. A major change in seasonality and water column struc...

Paleocene–Eocene warming and changes in oceanic hydrography should have significantly impacted the ecology of marine microorganisms, both at the surface and on the seafloor. We analyzed several key characteristics of foraminifera from two Shatsky Rise (ODP Leg 198) cores spanning the P/E boundary including the maximum test diameters of the largest calcareous trochospiral benthic foraminifera an...

Phytoplankton and benthic algae coexist in shallow lakes and the outcome of the competition between these two photoautotrophs can markedly influence water clarity. It is well established that exposed artificial substrate in eutrophic waters can remove nutrients and fine particles from the water column via the attached periphyton canopy. However, the effects of the introduction of artificial sub...

Cephalopods (nautiluses, cuttlefishes, squids and octopuses) exhibit direct development and display two major developmental modes: planktonic and benthic. Planktonic hatchlings are small and go through some degree of morphological changes during the planktonic phase, which can last from days to months, with ocean currents enhancing their dispersal capacity. Benthic hatchlings are usually large,...

Continental shelves are predominately ( 70%) covered with permeable, sandy sediments. While identified as critical sites for intense oxygen, carbon, and nutrient turnover, constituent exchange across permeable sediments remains poorly quantified. The central North Sea largely consists of permeable sediments and has been identified as increasingly at risk for developing hypoxia. Therefore, we in...