Some of most used indicators in marine ecology are nucleic acid-derived indices. They can be divided by target levels in three groups: 1) at the organism level as ecophysiologic indicators, indicators such as RNA:DNA ratios, DNA:dry weight and RNA:protein, 2) at the population level, indicators such as growth rate, starvation incidence or fisheries impact indicators, and 3) at the community lev...

The present study was conducted to examine the impact of cage aquaculture on benthic communities in coastal areas (depth 25 to 50 m) from fish farming operations located along the southeastern Black Sea (Ordu-Perşembe, Trabzon-Yomra and Rize central). Sampling was conducted seasonally from April 2007 to 2009. Sediment samples were taken using Ekman Grab (box core- 0.04 m2). Temperature, salinit...

Research on regulatory mechanisms in biological populations often focuses on environmental covariates. An integrated approach that combines environmental indices with organismal-level information can provide additional insight on regulatory mechanisms. Survival of spring/summer Snake River Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is consistently low whereas some adjacent populations with simil...

the main objective of the present study was investigation on influences of different brackish water sources on freshwater prawn larval quality and developmental indices. for this study, along a larval period, four brackish water treatments with 12 ppt salinity including diluted marine water, brackish water from marine crystalline salt, brackish water with compounds of new formula and brackish w...

Two mathematical methods to assess the "health status" of flounder (Platichthys flesus), eelpout (Zoarces viviparus) and blue mussel (Mytilus spp.) populations of the Baltic Sea were applied on selected biomarker data collected during the EU project "BEEP" (Biological Effects of Environmental Pollution on Marine Coastal Ecosystems). The Bioeffect Assessment Index (BAI) and the Integrated Biomar...

DNA barcoding, as it is currently employed, enhances use of marine benthic macrofauna as environmental condition indicators by improving the speed and accuracy of the underlying taxonomic identifications. The next generation of barcoding applications, processing bulk environmental samples, will likely only provide presence information. However, macrofauna indices presently used to interpret the...

The pan-European MacroBen database was used to compare the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) and the Benthic Quality Index (BQIES), 2 biotic indices which rely on 2 distinct assessments of species sensitivity/tolerance (i.e. AMBI EG and BQI E[S50]0.05) and which up to now have only been compared on restricted data sets. A total of 12 409 stations were selected from the database. This subset (indi...

Various definitions and indices have been proposed in the literature to identify keystone species. In this study, we intended to make the concept of keystone species operational for marine biodiversity conservation. We used an exclusive definition of keystone species, based on the original concept of keystone predator, and derived a new functional index of keystoneness (KS) from an ecosystem-mo...

The loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) is an endangered marine reptile for whom assessing population health requires knowledge of demographic parameters such as individual growth rate. In Cape Verde, as within several populations, adult female loggerhead sea turtles show a size-related behavioral and trophic dichotomy. While smaller females are associated with oceanic habitats, larger females ...