Ecological connectivity is important for effective marine planning and biodiversity conservation. Our aim was to identify factors important in influencing variation in benthic community structure on shallow rocky reefs in 2 regions of the Mediterranean Sea with contrasting oceanographic regimes. We assessed beta (β) diversity at 146 sites in the littoral and shallow sublittoral from the Adriati...

The marine snail Littorina saxatilis exhibits extreme morphological variation between and within geographical regions and represents an excellent model for assessing local adaptation. Previous studies support the hypothesis of parallel evolution in sympatry of two morphologically different ecotypes (named as RB and SU) that co-inhabit different habitats from Galician rocky shores (NW Spain), an...

in the present paper various transects perpendicular to iranian makran coasts (chabahar-gawater) were studied using satellite image processing, field observations, sandy shore profiling and grain size analysis to evaluate sedimentology and geomorphology of the area. data revealed that the study area includes exposed rocky shores (52%), sandy shores (40%), and mud flats (8%) sheltered in estuari...

African lakes have produced striking variation in cichlid fish fauna. Lake Tanganyika, whose age is estimated at 9 to 12,000,000 years, is the oldest East African lake and hides morphologically, genetically and behaviorally diverse group cichlid fish. Many of the more than 200 described species is divided into geographically and genetically distinct populations that differ primarily in their co...

The diversity of form among benthic marine plants and animals on rocky coasts is remarkable. Stiff and strong organisms grow alongside others that are compliant and flimsy. Given the severity of wave action on many shores and thus the potential for the imposition of large hydrodynamic forces, this immediately raises the question of how, from this overall spectrum of designs, flexible and weak o...

Ecological aspects of the intertidal fortuyniid oribatid mites Alismobates inexpectatus and Fortuynia atlantica and the selenoribatid Carinozetes bermudensis and Carinozetes trifoveatus were studied in the Bermuda islands. All species are stenotopic inhabitants of the marine littoral zone. Fortuynia atlantica and C. trifoveatus dwell predominantly in the lower eulittoral zone of rocky shores, A...

Fish assemblages associated with 14 marine caves and adjacent external rocky reefs were investigated at four Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) along the coasts of Italy. Within the caves sampling was carried out in different sub-habitats: walls, ceilings, bottoms and ends of caves. On the whole, 38 species were recorded inside the 14 caves investigated. Eighteen species were exclusively found insid...

In this study, we evaluated the possible role of Ligia italica as a bioindicator for the monitoring of heavy metals pollution in the suppralittoral zone of marine rocky coasts. Between 2004 and 2011 specimens of L. italica were collected along the Eastern Sicilian coasts from sites known for their high pollution levels as they are near to an area where in September 2001 a refinery plant dischar...

The increasing availability of high-quality digital elevation models (DEMs) has been associated with a growing interest in developing quantitative analyses aimed at taking advantage these detailed, updated, and promising datasets. Land-surface (LSQ) analysis is valuable for describing the land-surface topography performing measures signature specific geomorphic processes, into account site-spec...

Remodeling of rocky coasts and erosion rates have been widely studied in past years, but not all the involved processes acting over rocks surface have been quantitatively evaluated yet. The first goal of this paper is to revise the different methodologies employed in the quantification of the effect of biotic agents on rocks exposed to coastal morphologic agents, comparing their efficiency. Sec...