Predicting the strength and context-dependency of species interactions across multiple scales is a core area in ecology. This is especially challenging in the marine environment, where populations of most predators and prey are generally open, because of their pelagic larval phase, and recruitment of both is highly variable. In this study we use a comparative-experimental approach on small and ...

Photoacclimatory responses of the seagrass Zostera marina in the intertidal and subtidal zones were investigated by measuring chlorophyll a fluorescence parameters, photosynthetic pigments, leaf δ13C values, and shoot morphology in two bay systems. Intertidal plants had higher carotenoid concentrations than subtidal plants to avoid photodamage under excess light conditions during the day. The m...

Patchiness of habitat has important influences on distributions and abundances of organisms. Given the increasing threat of loss and alteration of habitats due to pressures associated with humans, there is a need for ecologists to understand species' requirements for habitat and to predict changes to taxa under various future environmental conditions. This study tested hypotheses about the gene...

The lipid class composition in juveniles of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis of rocky shore and subtidal origin were compared after transfer to a subtidal environment in the Ria de Arousa (northwest Spain). The experiment was conducted between November 27, 1995 and July 3, 1996. In addition to mussel origin, the influence of the different environmental parameters on the changes in lipid cla...

Does Zostera marina exhibit phenotypic plasticity, maximizing fitness in traits responding to environmental factors, i.e., depth and temperature? We compared the vegetative sexual phenology reproductive effort of Z. by analyzing shoot density, biomass, stages determine structural features shoots from subtidal intertidal environments San Quintín Bay, Baja California, a year before after 1997–199...

Species interactions are integral drivers of community structure and can change from competitive to facilitative with increasing environmental stress. In subtidal marine ecosystems, however, interactions along physical stress gradients have seldom been tested. We observed seaweed canopy interactions across depth and latitudinal gradients to test whether light and temperature stress structured i...

We examined stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios for a large variety of consumers in intertidal and subtidal habitats, and their potential primary food sources [i.e., microphytobenthos (MPB), phytoplankton, and Phragmites australis] in a coastal bay system, Yeoja Bay of Korea, to test the hypothesis that the transfer of intertidal MPB-derived organic carbon to the subtidal food web can be ...

The introduction of pollutants into the marine environment is inevitable, so an understanding of their effects is needed. Because shallow, coastal waters are at greatest risk and many of these shorelines are sandy, a test system for the shallow, sandy, subtidal environment is required. We developed a microcosm system for this purpose and tested it for three months to determine whether the benth...

The distribution of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis spans a steep gradient of environmental stress between intertidal and subtidal habitats, and can provide insight into population-scale patterns and underlying processes of variation in physiological tolerances. I conducted a 7 wk reciprocal transplant of mussels between the upper intertidal and subtidal portion of their natural depth distributi...

Sponges (Phylum Porifera) are an evolutionary and ecologically significant group; however information on processes influencing sponge population distributions is surprisingly limited. Carteriospongia foliascens is a common Indo-Pacific sponge, which has been reported from the intertidal to the mesophotic. Interestingly, the distribution of C. foliascens at inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Ree...