Tropical marine ecosystems are among the most diverse of the world oceans, so that assessing the linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem functions (BEF) is a crucial step to predict consequences of biodiversity loss. Most BEF studies in marine ecosystems have been carried out on macrobenthic diversity, whereas the influence of the meiofauna on ecosystem functioning has received much less at...

Published data on production of natural populations of benthic organisms were used to derive allometric equations relating annual production per unit biomass (P: B ratio) to mean individual body mass (time and biomass weighted) in the population on which production was measured. Separate equations were derived for meiofauna and macrofauna. Since no published data on production and size-structur...

− Quantitative surveys of metazoan meiofauna were carried out in an upwelling region off Central Chile (36oS). During May 1997 and May 1998, coinciding with the onset and end of El Niño, five benthic stations (respectively 27, 34, 64, 88, and 120 m depth), from the middle of Concepción Bay to the edge of the adjacent continental shelf, were sampled. The sedimentary organic matter biopolymeric f...

Pockmarks are circular-shaped depressions that increase seabed heterogeneity and characterized by discontinuous fluid emissions. To understand how environmental conditions of pockmarks affect the structure macro- meiofauna, we investigated two sites in a pockmark field northwestern Madagascar margin. In comparative approach, explored community dominant taxa (Polychaeta, Nematoda hyaline foramin...