An understanding of how habitat structure influences physical environmental processes that are important to organisms utilizing the habitat is a necessary basis for predicting biological responses to habitat variation. Seagrass meadows represent an important coastal nursery habitat that modifies the local flow environment. We used basic fluid-dynamic balances to construct a simple model of the ...

Multiple forces structure natural microbial communities, but the relative roles and interactions of these drivers are poorly understood. Gradients of physical and chemical parameters can be especially influential. In traditional ecological theory, variability in environmental conditions across space and time represents habitat heterogeneity, which may shape communities. Here we used aquatic mic...

This study investigated how the resolution of observation influences interpretation of how fish, juvenile Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), exploit the hydraulic environment in streams. Our objectives were to evaluate how spatial resolution of the flow field observation influenced: (1) the velocities considered to be representative of habitat units; (2) patterns of use of the hydraulic enviro...

In this review, I explore the effects of both social organization and the physical environment, specifically habitat complexity, on the brains and behavior of highly visual African cichlid fishes, drawing on examples from primates and birds where appropriate. In closely related fishes from the monophyletic Ectodinii clade of Lake Tanganyika, both forces influence cichlid brains and behavior. Co...

The present study examined a preliminary analysis for improving model structure of fuzzy habitat preference model for Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) dwelling in agricultural canals in Japan. The present model employed a simplified fuzzy reasoning method for evaluating habitat preference of the fish based on the relationship with physical habitat characteristics observed in the field survey. ...

Artificial changes of rivers, including construction and operation of dams, inevitably lead to physical and ecological changes throughout waterways and their floodplains. In this study, a conceptual model coupled with integrated numerical modeling is presented for hydraulic fish habitat assessment of the Geum River basin, Republic of Korea. Based on the major events which might have affected th...

The muriqui (Brachyteles spp.), endemic to the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, is the largest primate in South America and is endangered, mainly due to habitat loss. Its distribution limits are still uncertain and need to be resolved in order to determine their true conservation status. Species distribution modeling (SDM) has been used to estimate potential species distributions, even when informati...

For sessile marine invertebrates with complex life cycles, habitat choice is directed by the larval phase. Defining which habitat-linked cues are implicated in sessile invertebrate larval settlement has largely concentrated on chemical cues which are thought to signal optimal habitat. There has been less effort establishing physical settlement cues, including the role of surface microtopography...

Correspondence José Martín, Departamento ae Ecología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencías Naturales, eSle, José Gutiérrez Abaseal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spaín, Tel. +34914111328; Fax: +34 915645078 Email: [email protected] Amphisbaenians are reptiles specialized for a fossoríal lifestyle, which may limit their opportunities for microhabitat selection in comparison with epigeal reptiles, \Ve ...

Ecosystems are mosaics of different habitats, each of which provides its own opportunities and risks to the organisms that inhabit it. The profitability of any habitat depends on a variety of biotic and abiotic variables including the abundance of prey, vulnerability to predators, and physical features such as temperature that modify physiology and behavior. Because biological and physical cond...