SYNOPSIS. Newly settled or hatched juveniles of marine benthic invertebrates generally experience very high mortality. Juvenile mortality can profoundly affect adult populations, but little is known about how individual variation in juvenile quality affects performance. Several recent studies have demonstrated that differences in size, larval nutrient stores, or larval feeding history can stron...

Ulva spp., the algae most responsible for green tides in Brittany (France), are found on the foreshore and in the most beachward wave area (MBWA) of many bays during green tide phenomena. These algae have recently been seen drifting at greater depths (reaching - 20 m). In view of the significant quantities of algae found at these depths, and the less favorable conditions for algal growth than i...

The threat of global warming has prompted numerous recent studies on the thermal tolerance of marine species. A widely used method to determine the upper thermal limit has been the Critical Thermal Maximum (CTMax), a dynamic method, meaning that temperature is increased gradually until a critical point is reached. This method presents several advantages over static methods, however, there is on...

Kelp forests dominated by species of Laminariales are globally recognized as key habitats on subtidal temperate rocky reefs. Forests characterized by fucalean seaweed, in contrast, receive relatively less attention despite being abundant, ubiquitous, and ecologically important. Here, we review information on subtidal fucalean taxa of Australia's Great Southern Reef, with a focus on the three mo...

As part of a comprehensive study of inner shelf dynamics in the vicinity of a major estuary, we test the performance of a shipboard acoustic Doppler current pro/iter (ADCP). We compare velocities from the ADCP with those from current meters located 6 and 10 m below the surface in water shallower than 30 m. We find the ADCP suitable to estimate subtidal currents of 0(10 cm S-I) embedded in a tid...

Marine intertidal organisms are subjected to a variety of abiotic stresses, including aerial exposure and wide ranges of temperature. Intertidal species generally have higher thermal tolerance limits than do subtidal species, and tropical species have higher thermal tolerance limits than do temperate species. The adaptive significance of upper thermal tolerance limits of intertidal organisms, h...

Mussel seed (Mytilusgalloprovincialis) gathered from the intertidal and subtidal environments of a Galician embayment (NW, Spain) were maintained in the laboratory during five months to select fast (F) and slow (S) growing mussels. The physiological basis underlying inter-individual growth variations were compared for F and S mussels from both origins. Fast growing seemed to be a consequence of...

This paper examines how the use of various taxonomic levels and morphological functional groups influences the interpretation of multivariate analyses when comparing macroalgal assemblages in different regions in the Northeast Pacific. We found that for intertidal assemblages, within-site variation was high at the species level and regions only became discernable from the genus level to the ord...

Understanding the variation of biodiversity along environmental gradients and multiple spatial scales is relevant for theoretical and management purposes. Hereby, we analysed the spatial variability in diversity and structure of intertidal and subtidal macrobenthic Antarctic communities along vertical environmental stress gradients and across multiple horizontal spatial scales. Since biotic int...