Articles

A cross-genus comparison of grazing pressure by two native marine herbivores on native, non-native naturalized, and non-native invasive Sargassum macroalgae

In marine systems, algal abundance and community composition is often heavily influenced by top-down control by herbivores. As a result, examining the extent to which native herbivores exert grazing pressure o...

Authors: Nikolas J. Kaplanis, Jill L. Harris and Jennifer E. Smith

Giant planktic larvae of anomalan crustaceans and their unusual compound eyes

Crustacean larvae are usually recognised as small organisms, below one millimeter body size. However, in different crustacean groups such as Stomatopoda, Polychelida, or Achelata, also very large larvae occur ...

Authors: Paula Gundi, Chiara Cecchin, Lara-Leonie Fetzer, Carolin Haug, Roland R. Melzer and Joachim T. Haug

Micro- and mesozooplankton at the edges of coastal tropical reefs (Tamandaré, Brazil)

Tropical reef ecosystems are generally considered to be sinks of marine zooplankton, mainly due to the predation by scleractinian corals and other planktivores. The present study aims to evaluate the zooplankt...

Authors: Morgana Brito-Lolaia, Gleice S. Santos, Sigrid Neumann-Leitão and Ralf Schwamborn

Reproduction of the endangered endemic saffron coral to the Gulf of California Porites sverdrupi (Anthozoa: Scleractinia): implications for its long-term maintenance

The biology of the scleractinian Porites sverdrupi, endemic to the Gulf of California, is poorly studied. In order to fill that gap, the present study documents the reproductive biology of this coral which is to ...

Authors: Violeta Martínez-Castillo, Alma Paola Rodríguez-Troncoso, Héctor Reyes-Bonilla, Carlos Augusto Aguilar-Cruz and Carlos Rangel-Dávalos

Timing of the reproductive cycle of waved whelk, Buccinum undatum, on the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Bight

Development of the unmanaged waved whelk (Buccinum undatum) fishery on the Mid-Atlantic continental shelf of the United States has initiated investigation into fisheries-related biological and population attribut...

Authors: Sarah Borsetti, Daphne Munroe, David Rudders and Jui-Han Chang

Antifouling and antibacterial activities of bioactive extracts from different organs of the sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota

In this study, antifouling and antibacterial properties of polar, semi polar and non-polar bioactive compounds derived from the sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota were investigated. A series comprising n-hexane...

Authors: Mehrnoosh Darya, Mir Masoud Sajjadi, Morteza Yousefzadi, Iman Sourinejad and Maaroof Zarei

Combined effects of ocean acidification and hypoxia on the early development of the thick shell mussel Mytilus coruscus

Ocean acidification has become serious, and seawater hypoxia has become evident in acidified waters. The combination of such stressors may have interactive effects on the fitness of marine organisms. In order ...

Authors: Xinghuo Wang, Yueyong Shang, Hui Kong, Menghong Hu, Jinlong Yang, Yuewen Deng and Youji Wang

Age and growth of Glycymeris longior (Sowerby, 1832) clam at the southern edge of its distribution (Argentine Sea)

Even though Glycymeris longior is a clam widely distributed in the SW Atlantic Ocean, little is known about its biology and life history. The present study assessed the periodicity of the internal growth incremen...

Authors: Lucas H. Gimenez, María del Socorro Doldan, Paula C. Zaidman and Enrique M. Morsan

Analysing long-term change in small benthos: geomorphological dynamics affects method selection

In the tidal inlets of the northern Wadden Sea, species composition of selected taxa of the small benthos is compared to a study performed some 35 years before, using the same methods and sampling the same sit...

Authors: Werner Armonies

An invasive alien bivalve apparently provides a novel food source for moulting and wintering benthic feeding sea ducks

Since its introduction from North America in the 1970s, the American razor clam Ensis leei (M. Huber, 2015) has successfully spread throughout North Sea coasts from Spain to Norway and the United Kingdom to the w...

Authors: Johanna Kottsieper, Philipp Schwemmer, Nele Markones, Anthony D. Fox and Stefan Garthe

Cuttlebone morphometrics and sex identification of Sepia bertheloti (d’Orbigny, 1835) from the central-east Atlantic

Analysis of 322 cuttlebones of Sepia bertheloti caught in the waters of the Northwest Africa showed significant differences in growth between males and females. Morphometric analysis revealed a relatively differe...

Authors: Airam Guerra-Marrero, David Jiménez-Alvarado, Vicente Hernández-García, Leticia Curbelo-Muñoz and José Juan Castro-Hernández

An updated phytoplankton check-list for the Helgoland Roads time series station with eleven new records of diatoms and dinoflagellates

The Helgoland Roads time series is one of the longest and most detailed time series in the world. It comprises daily phytoplankton counts accompanied by physico-chemical measurements. As such, it provides valu...

Authors: Alexandra Kraberg, Ute Kieb, Silvia Peters and Karen Helen Wiltshire

Is food supply for shellfish-eating birds in the western Wadden Sea affected by the between-species synchrony in year-to-year fluctuations of bivalve population parameters?

For a better understanding of functioning and stability of ecosystems, it is important to know to what extent constituent species show similarity in their long-term fluctuation patterns, i.e. whether their num...

Authors: J. J. Beukema and R. Dekker

An exclusion experiment to study the influence of habitat structure provided by Mussismilia corals (Cnidaria; Anthozoa) on the predation of associated crustaceans

Predation is an interaction between species that influences community organisation by the direct consumption of prey, influencing prey numbers, behaviours and traits. The intensity of predation is greatly infl...

Authors: Marcos M. Nogueira, Elizabeth Neves and Rodrigo Johnsson

Evaluating the potential impact of bird predation on the SW Atlantic fiddler crab Leptuca uruguayensis

The southernmost permanent population of the fiddler crab Leptuca uruguayensis occurs along the Samborombón Bay (36°22′S, 56°45′W, Argentina), an important feeding site for many bird species, including ruddy turn...

Authors: Pablo D. Ribeiro, Diego D. Navarro, Luciano M. Jaureguy, Pedro Daleo and Oscar O. Iribarne

Effects of elevated temperature and sedimentation on grazing rates of the green sea urchin: implications for kelp forests exposed to increased sedimentation with climate change

Sea urchin grazing rates can strongly impact kelp bed persistence. Elevated water temperature associated with climate change may increase grazing rates; however, these effects may interact with local stressors...

Authors: Sarah B. Traiger

Progress and perspectives in the discovery of polychaete worms (Annelida) of the world

Despite the availability of well-documented data, a comprehensive review of the discovery progress of polychaete worms (Annelida) has never been done. In the present study, we reviewed available data in the Wo...

Authors: Joko Pamungkas, Christopher J. Glasby, Geoffrey B. Read, Simon P. Wilson and Mark J. Costello

Satellite observations of the effect of the “Godzilla El Niño” on the Tehuantepec upwelling system in the Mexican Pacific

During 2015–2016, a strong El Niño, the “Godzilla El Niño,” which is similar to El Niño events that occurred in 1982/1983 and 1997/1998, occurred in the Pacific Ocean. In this paper, we report on the influence...

Authors: Erik Coria-Monter, David Alberto Salas de León, María Adela Monreal-Gómez and Elizabeth Durán-Campos

Dual culture of the oomycete Lagenisma coscinodisci Drebes and Coscinodiscus diatoms as a model for plankton/parasite interactions

Diatoms are thought to provide about 40% of total global photosynthesis and diatoms of the genus Coscinodiscus are an important, sometimes dominant, cosmopolitan component of the marine diatom community. The oomy...

Authors: Anthony Buaya, Alexandra Kraberg and Marco Thines

Parasites of fish Poecilia velifera and their potential as bioindicators of wetland restoration progress

Fish harbor a high diversity of parasites that play an important role for the ecosystem. Because these parasites have different life-cycle traits, changes in their populations or communities may provide useful...

Authors: Francisco N. Morales-Serna, María A. Rodríguez-Santiago, Rolando Gelabert and Luz M. Flores-Morales

Population genetics of Bursatella leachii (De Blainville, 1817) and implications for the origin of the Mediterranean population

The sea hare Bursatella leachii (de Blainville 1817) (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Heterobranchia: Aplysiidae) is a pantropical sea slug that has colonized the Mediterranean Sea in modern times. Because the initial reco...

Authors: Enrico Bazzicalupo, Fabio Crocetta, Ka‘ala Estores-Pacheco, Haleh Golestani, Hocein Bazairi, Salvatore Giacobbe, Andrej Jaklin, Dimitris Poursanidis, B. K. Sneha Chandran, Juan Lucas Cervera and Ángel Valdés

Uncharted biodiversity in the marine benthos: the void of the smallish with description of ten new Platyhelminth taxa from the well-studied North Sea

Most of our planet’s biodiversity is still unknown, particularly in the sea. Although around the island of Sylt in the North Sea, the small zoobenthos (meiofauna) has been studied intensively since the 1950s, ...

Authors: Werner Armonies

Neohelice granulata burrow fidelity behaviour related to landscape heterogeneity

Neohelice granulata provides an interesting animal model for studying behavioural process because it is widely distributed, ensuring variability related to different environmental conditions. The aim of this stud...

Authors: J. D. Nuñez, P. D. Ribeiro, E. H. Ocampo and T. A. Luppi

Genetic and morpho-physiological differentiation in a limpet population across an intertidal gradient

Marine organism adaptive capacity to different environmental conditions is a research priority to understand what conditions are important in structuring the spatial distribution of natural populations. In thi...

Authors: Jesús Darío Nuñez, Pedro Fernández Iriarte, Emiliano Hernán Ocampo, Enrique Madrid and Maximiliano Cledón

Variability in the settlement of non-indigenous species in benthic communities from an oceanic island

The introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS) in new environments represents a major threat for coastal ecosystems. A good understanding of the mechanisms and magnitude of the impact of NIS colonisation on ...

Authors: Léa Riera, Patrício Ramalhosa, João Canning-Clode and Ignacio Gestoso

Nudibranchs out of water: long-term temporal variations in the abundance of two Dendrodoris species under emersion

The sudden appearance and disappearance of nudibranchs in intertidal areas have puzzled researchers all over the world, giving rise to a great diversity of theories to explain it. Here we conducted a five-year...

Authors: Ricardo Cyrne, Inês C. Rosa, Filipa Faleiro, Gisela Dionísio, Miguel Baptista, Ana Couto, Marta Pola and Rui Rosa

First record of the non-indigenous jellyfish Blackfordia virginica (Mayer, 1910) in the Baltic Sea

Marine invasions are of increasing concern for biodiversity conservation worldwide. Gelatinous macrozooplankton contain members, which have become globally invasive, for example the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi o...

Authors: Cornelia Jaspers, Bastian Huwer, Nancy Weiland-Bräuer and Catriona Clemmesen

The illusion of rarity in an epibenthic jellyfish: facts and artefacts in the distribution of Tesserogastria musculosa (Hydrozoa, Ptychogastriidae)

Epibenthic and benthopelagic medusae are rarely collected by standard benthic or pelagic sampling methods, and many species are considered uncommon and geographically restricted. Peer-reviewed scientific liter...

Authors: Luis Martell, Anne Helene S. Tandberg and Aino Hosia

Microscopic species make the diversity: a checklist of marine flora and fauna around the Island of Sylt in the North Sea

Based on the past 150 years of research and ongoing time-series observations we give a comprehensive overview of marine species composition around the island of Sylt in the eastern North Sea. A total of 2758 s...

Authors: Werner Armonies, Harald Asmus, Christian Buschbaum, Dagmar Lackschewitz, Karsten Reise and Johannes Rick

Does rock type account for variation in mussel attachment strength? A test with Brachidontes rodriguezii in the southwestern Atlantic

Mussel attachment strength varies in space and time, frequently in association with variations in wave exposure. Yet, it remains uninvestigated whether different rock types can contribute to variation in musse...

Authors: Jorge L. Gutiérrez, María Bagur, Lorena P. Arribas and M. Gabriela Palomo

Wulf Greve (1942–2018)

Authors: Karen H. Wiltshire, Dieter Hanelt and Maarten Boersma

Variation of sperm morphology in Pacific oyster precludes its use as a species marker but enables intraspecific geo-authentification and aquatic monitoring

According to recent reports, shell morphology is unreliable for the identification of oysters because of the high phenotypic plasticity of these bivalves. Using COI DNA barcoding and sperm morphology, we reinv...

Authors: Arkadiy Reunov, Evgenia Vekhova, Evgeny Zakharov, Yulia Reunova, Yana Alexandrova, Svetlana Sharina and Andrey Adrianov

Mysterious and elaborated: the reproductive behavior of the rhomboid mojarra, Diapterus rhombeus (Cuvier, 1829), in Brazilian mangrove habitats

Many fish species have behavioral traits related to reproduction that aim to improve egg conditions and survival of early life stages. Here, we provide the first detailed description of reproductive strategies...

Authors: José Amorim Reis-Filho and Antoine O. H. C. Leduc

Is the Wild Coast in eastern South Africa a distinct marine bioregion?

The South African coastline can be divided into at least four temperature-defined marine bioregions, including the tropical north-east coast, the subtropical east coast, the warm-temperate south coast, and the...

Authors: Candice M. Jooste, Jody Oliver, Arsalan Emami-Khoyi and Peter R. Teske

An annotated checklist of macrozoobenthic species in German waters of the North and Baltic Seas

The present compilation is the first attempt to generate a comprehensive list of all macrozoobenthic species recorded at least once in the German regions of the North Sea and Baltic Sea including non-indigenou...

Authors: Michael L. Zettler, Jan Beermann, Jennifer Dannheim, Brigitte Ebbe, Michael Grotjahn, Carmen-Pia Günther, Manuela Gusky, Britta Kind, Ingrid Kröncke, Ralph Kuhlenkamp, Claus Orendt, Eike Rachor, Anja Schanz, Alexander Schröder, Lisa Schüler and Jan Witt

The colonial ascidian Diplosoma listerianum enhances the occurrence of the hydrozoan Obelia sp. during early phases of succession

Recruitment patterns of sessile species often do not reflect the composition of the local propagule pool. This is, among other processes, attributed to the stimulation or inhibition of settlement by resident s...

Authors: I. Krüger, M. Lenz and M. Thiel

The influence of season and the tidal cycle on division of labour by the radula during feeding in the estuarine brooding gastropod Crepipatella dilatata (Calyptraeidae)

The brooding gastropod Crepipatella dilatata can feed by scraping the substrate with the radula and by suspension-feeding, which also requires use of the radula. There is a “division of labour” for the radula amo...

Authors: O. R. Chaparro, J. A. Montory, C. J. Segura, V. M. Cubillos, L. P. Salas-Yanquin and R. J. Thompson

Follower fish of the goldspotted eel Myrichthys ocellatus with a review on anguilliform fish as nuclear species

In a nuclear-follower fish foraging association, the follower benefits from food uncovered or flushed out when the nuclear fish disturbs the bottom, while nuclear species generally do not seem to be benefiting...

Authors: Maria L. F. Ternes, Vinicius J. Giglio, Thiago C. Mendes and Pedro H. C. Pereira

Site fidelity and population structure of blue land crabs (Cardisoma guanhumi Latreille, 1825) in a restricted-access mangrove area, analyzed using PIT tags

Understanding the patterns of displacement and site fidelity in blue land crabs (Cardisoma guanhumi Latreille, 1825) has important implications for their conservation and management. The central objective of this...

Authors: Denise Moraes-Costa and Ralf Schwamborn

Viral dynamics in two trophically different areas in the Central Adriatic Sea

To understand the activity of marine viruses, experiments on viral production, viral decay and the percentage of lytic and lysogenic bacterial cells among the total number of bacterial cells were carried out s...

Authors: Marin Ordulj, Nada Krstulović, Danijela Šantić, Slaven Jozić and Mladen Šolić

Cost/benefit and the effect of sample preservation procedures on quantitative patterns in benthic ecology

Some benthic assemblages studies have tested the effects of different preservation procedures on biomass, but their influence on quantitative patterns (number of species and abundance) is still unclear. We eva...

Authors: Gabriel Barros Gonçalves de Souza and Francisco Barros

Spatial variation of reef fishes and the relative influence of biotic and abiotic habitat traits

Patterns of distribution of reef fishes were examined across three spatial scales and related to habitat traits along 25 km of the northern Portuguese coast. Response variables included the multivariate assemb...

Authors: Iacopo Bertocci, I. Sousa-Pinto and P. Duarte

Non-indigenous species (NIS) of polychaetes (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of the Iberian Peninsula: an annotated checklist

This study provides an updated catalogue of non-indigenous species (NIS) of polychaetes reported from the continental coasts of the Iberian Peninsula based on the available literature. A list of 23 introduced ...

Authors: E. López and A. Richter

Dynamics of a Limecola (Macoma) balthica population in a tidal flat area in the western Wadden Sea: effects of declining survival and recruitment

We followed the dynamics of the population of the bivalve Limecola (Macoma) balthica in the westernmost part of the Wadden Sea by monitoring for 44 years (1973–2016) its numbers and age composition at 15 sites in...

Authors: J. J. Beukema, R. Dekker and J. Drent

Host-use pattern of the shrimp Periclimenes paivai on the scyphozoan jellyfish Lychnorhiza lucerna: probing for territoriality and inferring its mating system

In symbiotic crustaceans, host-use patterns vary broadly. Some species inhabit host individuals solitarily, other species live in heterosexual pairs, and even other species live in aggregations. This disparity...

Authors: J. Antonio Baeza, Samara de Paiva Barros-Alves, Rudá Amorim Lucena, Silvio Felipe Barbosa Lima and Douglas Fernandes Rodrigues Alves

Distribution patterns of epilithic diatoms along climatic, spatial and physicochemical variables in the Baltic Sea

The species richness and community composition of the diatom communities were studied in the Baltic Sea, Northern Europe, to enhance knowledge about the diversity of these organisms in a brackish water ecosyst...

Authors: Leena Virta and Janne Soininen

Fatty acid compositions associated with high-light tolerance in the intertidal rhodophytes Mastocarpus stellatus and Chondrus crispus

The rhodophytes Mastocarpus stellatus and Chondrus crispus occupy the lower intertidal zone of rocky shores along North Atlantic coastlines, with C. crispus generally occurring slightly deeper. Consequently, M. s...

Authors: Kristina Koch, Wilhelm Hagen, Martin Graeve and Kai Bischof

Morphology and ultrastructure of the adult ovarian cycle in Mithracidae (Crustacea, Decapoda, Brachyura, Majoidea)

The ultrastructure of the ovary during development and yolk production is poorly known in Brachyura and Majoidea in particular. Here, we describe the histology, histochemistry and ultrastructure of the adult o...

Authors: Michelle Mollemberg, Fernando José Zara and William Santana

Exploring the decline of oyster beds in Atlantic Canada shorelines: potential effects of crab predation on American oysters (Crassostrea virginica)

Atlantic Canada’s American oyster (Crassostrea virginica) beds, while economically and ecologically important, have been in decline over the past few decades. Predation by crabs, in particular by the European gr...

Authors: Luke A. Poirier, Lynn A. Symington, Jeffrey Davidson, Sophie St-Hilaire and Pedro A. Quijón

Long-term change of meiofaunal species composition in a sandy beach, with description of 7 new species of Platyhelminthes

Climate change and species introductions strongly changed macrobenthic community composition in the North Sea during past decades. To find out whether there was a similar change in meiofauna, I re-examined a s...

Authors: Werner Armonies