Behavioural interactions between ecosystem engineers may strongly influence community structure. We tested whether an invasive ecosystem engineer, the alga Caulerpa taxifolia, indirectly facilitated community diversity by modifying the behaviour of a native ecosystem engineer, the clam Anadara trapezia, in southeastern Australia. In this study, clams in Caulerpa-invaded sediments partially unbu...

Disturbance can fragment plant clones into different sizes and unstabilize soils to different degrees, so that clonal fragments of different sizes can be buried in soils at different depths. As a short-term storage organ, solon internode may help fragmented clones of stoloniferous plants to withstand deeper burial in soils. We address (1) whether burial in soils decreases survival and growth of...

The marine environment contains suspended particulate matter which originates from natural and anthropogenic sources. Settlement of this material can leave benthic organisms susceptible to smothering, especially if burial is sudden i.e. following storms or activities such as dredging. Their survival will depend on their tolerance to, and their ability to escape from burial. Here we present data...

Sedimentation and burial affect a variety of habitats worldwide, especially within coastal marine systems. In the Mediterranean, seagrasses like Cymodocea nodosa are commonly subjected to sedimentation and, although the response of C. nodosa has been documented, few studies have included macrofaunal responses. We used a manipulative field experiment to examine the effects of a single small-scal...

Clonal plants producing both clumping and spreading ramets can adjust their growth forms in response to resource heterogeneity or environmental stress. They might produce clumping ramets to retain favorable patches, or produce spreading ramets to escape from stress-affected patches. This study aimed to investigate the rarely reported concurrent effects of sediment accretion and nutrient enrichm...

Trachypogon spicatus, formerly known as Trachypogon plumosus, is a dominant grass in some savannas of Northern South America. Its dispersal unit, like many other species of the Andropogoneae tribe, bears a hygroscopic awn which facilitates its establishment in favorable microsites. Some authors have previously proposed that there is a positive correlation between awn length and dispersal unit b...

Reburial of underwater archaeological sites is becoming increasingly common practice. Reburial may be an appropriate means of stabilizing and decreasing the deterioration rate of a site, however, there needs to be a holistic approach to the study of the environment, before and after reburial, to gain a full understanding of the changes that are occurring on the site and determine the effectiven...

Predators are an important source of mortality for animals that lay their eggs in buried nests. We asked how depth alters the process of predation for buried prey. We outlined a general model of predation risk where depth may alter both prey detection and subsequent capture: deeper prey are detected less often because the strength of olfactory cues decreases with burial depth and, once detected...

Coastal dune plants are subjected to natural multiple stresses and vulnerable to global change. Some changes associated with global change could interact in their effects on vegetation. As vegetation plays a fundamental role in building and stabilizing dune systems, effective coastal habitat management requires a better understanding of the combined effects of such changes on plant populations....