Articles

Who lives where? Macrobenthic species distribution over sediment types and depth classes in the eastern North Sea

An extensive data set of macrozoobenthos from the eastern North Sea was evaluated in order to describe the distribution of infaunal species with respect to water depth and median grain size of the sediment. Th...

Authors: Werner Armonies

In the Asia-Pacific region, the COI DNA test revealed the divergence of the bivalve mollusc Mactra chinensis into three species; can these species be distinguished using shell coloration and sperm structure?

According to COI DNA barcoding testing, the marine bivalve mollusc Mactra chinensis, which is native to the Asia-Pacific region, diverged into three species. These species were preliminary characterized as M. chi...

Authors: Arkadiy Reunov, Konstantin Lutaenko, Evgenia Vekhova, Junlong Zhang, Evgeny Zakharov, Svetlana Sharina, Yana Alexandrova, Yulia Reunova, Anna Akhmadieva and Andrey Adrianov

Living and dead foraminiferal assemblage from the supratidal sand Japsand, North Frisian Wadden Sea: distributional patterns and controlling factors

Supratidal sands are vitally important for coastal defence in the German Wadden Sea. They are less affected by human activities than other areas as they are located far off the mainland shore, touristical and ...

Authors: Sarina Schmidt and Joachim Schönfeld

Benthic community establishment on different concrete mixtures introduced to a German deep-water port

Concrete is a widely used building material in coastal constructions worldwide. However, limited natural resources used in the production process, as well as high CO₂-emission due to the calcination process of li...

Authors: Lydia R. Becker, Ingrid Kröncke, Andreas Ehrenberg, Volkert Feldrappe and Kai Bischof

An example for transatlantic hitchhiking by macrozoobenthic organisms with a research vessel

In 2019 the RV Meteor cruised from Guadalupe in April/May to Cape Verde in June/July and to Namibia in August/September. The distance is about 10,000 km. The ship has a moon pool for installation of instrument...

Authors: Michael L. Zettler

Methods to study organogenesis in decapod crustacean larvae. I. larval rearing, preparation, and fixation

Crustacean larvae have served as distinguished models in the field of Ecological Developmental Biology (“EcoDevo”) for many decades, a discipline that examines how developmental mechanisms and their resulting ...

Authors: G. Torres, R. R. Melzer, F. Spitzner, Z. Šargač, S. Harzsch and L. Gimenez

Methods to study organogenesis in decapod crustacean larvae II: analysing cells and tissues

Cells and tissues form the bewildering diversity of crustacean larval organ systems which are necessary for these organisms to autonomously survive in the plankton. For the developmental biologist, decapod cru...

Authors: R. R. Melzer, F. Spitzner, Z. Šargač, M. K. Hörnig, J. Krieger, C. Haug, J. T. Haug, T. Kirchhoff, R. Meth, G. Torres and S. Harzsch

Macrofaunal assemblages associated with two common seagrass‐dwelling demosponges (Amorphinopsis atlantica and Haliclona implexiformis) in a tropical estuarine system of the southern Gulf of Mexico

Among the ecological roles that sponges play in marine ecosystems, one of the highlights is their ability to host a wide diversity and abundance of epibenthic organisms. However, of the different marine enviro...

Authors: Antony E. Briceño-Vera, Enrique Ávila, María A. Rodríguez-Santiago and Alejandro Ruiz-Marín

Diversity of mangrove root-dwelling sponges in a tropical coastal ecosystem in the southern Gulf of Mexico region

Sponges are one of the most conspicuous groups of epibionts in mangrove prop root habitats. However, with the exception of the Caribbean and the Indo-Pacific regions, studies focused on species diversity are l...

Authors: Pedro de Jesús Castellanos-Pérez, Laura Elena Vázquez-Maldonado, Enrique Ávila, José Antonio Cruz-Barraza and Julio César Canales-Delgadillo

Ovary resorption in the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) and its possible causes with special reference to sperm storage

The Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus, is an important fisheries species in the North-East Atlantic area. In some circumstances, mature females of Nephrops norvegicus can resorb their ovary rather than completi...

Authors: Carola Becker, Jaimie T. A. Dick, E. Mánus Cunningham, Mathieu Lundy, Ewen Bell, Lawrence Eagling and Julia D. Sigwart

Culture of benthic diatom Nitzschia sp. with macroalgae carriers and its application as feed of juveniles Stichopus japonicus

Carrier culture is the combination of suspension culture and adherent culture. Carriers could be used to improve the culture efficiency of large-scale culture of adherent benthic diatom. In order to identify a...

Authors: Aili Jiang, Heng Ji, Hengxu Liu, Huimin Zhu, Guofeng Ai and Xiaochen Guo

Changes in thiamine concentrations, fatty acid composition, and some other lipid-related biochemical indices in Baltic Sea Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) during the spawning run and pre-spawning fasting

Salmonines in the Baltic Sea and North American lakes suffer from thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, which is connected to an abundant lipid-rich diet containing substantial amounts of polyunsaturated fatty aci...

Authors: Pekka J. Vuorinen, Mervi Rokka, Tiina Ritvanen, Reijo Käkelä, Soili Nikonen, Tapani Pakarinen and Marja Keinänen

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