The deep eastern Mediterranean Sea is one of the most oligotrophic regions of the world’s oceans and is therefore highly suitable for investigating the response of a resource-limited deep-sea benthic community to food pulses. Additionally, the benthic response to organic matter (OM) deposition can differ according to the amount of OM entering the sediment. Here, we report on 36-h pulse–chase ex...

Excessive input of nitrogen to estuaries and coastal waters leads to eutrophication; the resulting organic matter over-enrichment of sediments and seasonal hypoxia of bottom water have significant deleterious effects on benthic community biodiversity, abundance, and biomass. Our goal was to better understand how these losses carry through to impairment of key ecosystem functions of benthic comm...

Microeukaryotes play key roles in the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems. Little is known about the relative importance of the processes that drive planktonic and benthic microeukaryotic biogeography in subtropical offshore areas. This study compares the microeukaryotic community compositions (MCCs) from offshore waters (n = 12) and intertidal sediments (n = 12) around Xiamen Island...

Disturbance-mediated species loss has prompted research considering how ecosystem functions are changed when biota is impaired. However, there is still limited empirical evidence from natural environments evaluating the direct and indirect (i.e. via biota) effects of disturbance on ecosystem functioning. Oxygen deficiency is a widespread threat to coastal and estuarine communities. While the ne...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are designed to reduce threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning from anthropogenic activities. Assessment of MPAs effectiveness requires synchronous sampling of protected and non-protected areas at multiple spatial and temporal scales. We used an autonomous underwater vehicle to map benthic communities in replicate 'no-take' and 'general-use' (fishing allo...

Detrital subsidies from marine macrophytes are prevalent in temperate estuaries, and their role in structuring benthic macrofaunal communities is well documented, but the resulting impact on ecosystem function is not understood. We conducted a field experiment to test the effects of detrital decay on soft-sediment primary production, community metabolism and nutrient regeneration (measures of e...

Bottom trawling has widespread impacts on benthic communities and habitats. It is argued that the impact of chronic bottom trawling on benthic infauna depends on the natural disturbance levels to which benthic communities are adapted. We analysed biomass, production and size structure of two communities from a muddy and a sandy habitat, in relation to quantified gradients of trawling disturbanc...

Vertebrate carcasses provide an episodic but highly important food source for benthic organisms, particularly at depths beyond the zones of primary productivity (Lalli and Parsons 2001). Such carcasses have recently become of interest due to increasing discards in fisheries as this may shift benthic community structure (Collins et al. 1999). Species such as ratfish and benthic sharks as well as...

Non-native species represent a significant threat to indigenous biodiversity and ecosystem functioning worldwide. It is widely acknowledged that invasive crayfish species may be instrumental in modifying benthic invertebrate community structure, but there is limited knowledge regarding the temporal and spatial extent of these effects within lotic ecosystems. This study investigates the long ter...