This contribution examines various flow measures based on analysis of 41 quantified models of trophic interactions in aquatic ecosystems. System productivity/biomass ratio is shown to relate to ecosystem maturity and to the degree of cycling in the systems. Distinct patterns or clusters are observed for different types of resource systems with respect to average path lengths and residence times...

Ecologists have hypothesized that the exponent of species-area power functions (z value) should increase with trophic level. The main explanation for this pattern has been that specialist predators require prior colonization of a patch by their prey, resulting in a compounding of the effects of area up trophic levels. We propose two novel explanations, neither of which assumes trophic coupling ...

Environmental diversity surveys are crucial for the bioassessment of anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems. Traditional benthic monitoring relying on morphotaxonomic inventories of macrofaunal communities is expensive, time-consuming and expertise-demanding. High-throughput sequencing of environmental DNA barcodes (metabarcoding) offers an alternative to describe biological communities. Ho...

Data on nutrient concentrations and environmental parameters, recorded in the waters of the entire Venice lagoon (165 sites) in July 2003 and in two stations monthly sampled for two years (from April 1994 to March 1995 and from January to December 2005), are reported in order to compare the trophic conditions with the past situation. In summer 2003 the dissolved inorganic nitrogen varied betwee...

The feeding diversity of macroinvertebrates from the estuary of Mondego was estimated with Shannon–Wiener complementary evenness following the methodology presented in Gamito and Furtado (2009. Ecological Indicators, 9: 1009-1019). Results were compared with those from BAT (Benthic Assessment Tool; Teixeira et al., 2009. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 58: 1477-1786) applied to the same data set, ob...

23 24 Understanding how marine ecosystems are structured and how they function is a 25 scientific challenge. Nowadays, to learn about ecosystem trophic dynamics ecologists use 26 two complementary methodological approximations, mass-balance ecosystem models and 27 isotopic tools. However, despite the wide applications of these methodologies, the 28 comparison and combination of both are still s...

Species experience landscapes differently depending on their needs and behaviors, and on their trophic level. We expect species at high trophic levels in a community to be more sensitive to habitat fragmentation than species at lower trophic levels. But this depends on attributes such as resource breadth, dispersiveness, reproductive rate, and longevity, which may not be related to trophic leve...

Phytoplankton groups are one of the major quality element to be used in evaluation trophic and ecological state freshwater ecosystems according EU Water Framework Directive. This research was made assess status Lake Bafa Turkey, on basis phytoplankton communities. Büyük Menderes River is most important factor that carries pollutants Bafa. The eight sampling station were assigned evaluate lake. ...

Abstract Along the French coast of Atlantic and English Channel in a high tidal regime, only limited number Artificial Reefs (ARs) had been immerged very few localities aim to increase local production fisheries such hard artificial substratum. Moreover, ARs design have planned diversity, abundance biomass benthic species associated hard-bottom. Does deployment structure improve ecological func...

In a food web, nutrients flow via trophic links. For this reason, trophic interactions have a fundamental character due to the principle of mass conservation. To further comply with this principle, we consider a food web model that includes nutrient cycling. Non-trophic effects amongst species of the food web are modelled as interaction modifications, i.e., a functional change in the trophic in...