Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- The Coral Tree at the End of the World: Introductory Notes to Coralline Mythology and Folklore from the Indian and Pacific Oce... -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Coral as Landscape -- 3 Coral as Sacred Place -- 4 Coral as Being -- 5 Conclusions -- References -- The Marine Animal Forests of South Africa: Importance for Bioregionalization and Marine Spatial Planning -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Oceanography, Biogeography and Biodiversity of Mainland South Africa´s Exclusive Economic Zone -- 3 Marine Animal Forest Ecosystems: Marine Benthic Eco-engineers in South Africa -- 3.1 Sponge Grounds -- 3.2 Shallow-Water Subtropical Coral Communities -- 3.3 Cold-Water Coral Reefs and Coral Communities -- 3.4 Octocoral Gardens -- 3.5 Sea Anemones -- 3.6 Bryozoan Thickets -- 3.7 Ascidians -- 4 Threats to South African Marine Animal Forests and Their Mitigation -- 4.1 Seabed Impacts Caused by Offshore Fishing and Mining in South Africa -- 4.2 Climate Change -- 5 Identifying and Protecting Important Areas of Marine Habitat and Biodiversity -- 5.1 Marine Protected Areas -- 5.2 Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas and Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems -- 5.3 Marine Spatial Planning -- 6 Conclusion -- References -- Coral and Reef Fish Communities in the Thermally Extreme Persian/Arabian Gulf: Insights into Potential Climate Change Effects -- 1 Coral Reefs Around the Globe Are Facing Major Challenges in the Face of Climate Change, with Changing Environmental Conditio... -- 2 The Gulf Is the World´s Hottest Sea Each Summer and Is, Thus, a Natural Laboratory to Understand How Climate Change Might Af... -- 3 The Cost of Surviving in an Extreme Environment Is Low Diversity and Limited Three-Dimensional Structure of Corals.

Activity Rhythms Measurement in Suspension Feeders -- Animal Forest Through the Time: Historical Data to Understand Present Changes in Marine Ecosystems -- Animal Forests of the World: an overview -- Antarctic Marine Animal Forests – Three-Dimensional Communities in Southern Ocean Ecosystems -- Complexity and Biodiversity in Caribbean Coral Reefs -- Connexion of the Animal Forest with Land Ecosystems: The Example of Mangroves -- Corals as Architects of the Oceans -- Diversity and Evolution of Octocoral Animal Forests at Both Sides of Tropical America -- Ecosystem Functions and Services of the Marine Animal Forests -- Ecosystem-based Management: Opportunities and Challenges for Application in the Ocean Forest -- Evolution of the Marine Animal Forest -- Filter-feeding Zoobenthos and Hydrodynamics -- Harvesting and Collection of Animal Forest Species -- Interaction and Competition for Space in the Animal Forest -- Limits of Photoadaptation and Photoacclimation in Symbiotic Corals -- Macroalgae in the Animal Forest: The Example of Coral Reefs and the Mediterranean Coralligene -- Marine Animal Forests in South Atlantic Waters: A New World to Discover -- Neglected Part of the Animal Forest: Hydrozoans as an Example -- Octocoral and Hexacoral Diseases in a Changing Ocean -- Pollution Effects on Tropical Animal Forests -- Role of Fishes in Tropical Coral Reefs -- Secondary Metabolites and Chemical Ecology in the Animal Forest -- Seston Quality and Available Food: Importance in the Benthic Biogeochemical Cicles -- Where Seaweed Forests Meet Animal Forests: the Examples of Macroalgae in Coral Reefs and the Mediterranean Coralligene -- Why Corals Should Care About Ocean Acidification: General Consensus and Misconceptions -- Benthic-pelagic Coupling: New Perspectives in the Animal Forests -- Drawing the Line at Neglected Marine Ecosystems: Ecology of Vermetid Reefs in a Changing Ocean -- Energetics, Particle Capture, and Trophic Ecology of Suspension Feeders -- Importance of Recruitment Processes in the Dynamics and Resilience of Reef Coral Assemblages -- Living in the Canopy of the Animal forest: Physical and Chemical Aspects -- Resilience of the Animal Forest -- Demography of Animal Forests: the Example of Mediterranean Gorgonians -- Genetic Connectivity in Harvested and not Harvested Species: Resilience and Management -- Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems -- Restoration of the Animal Forests: Considering Silviculture Concepts in Coral Transplantation -- Sponge Grounds as Key Marine Habitats: a Synthetic Review of Types, Structure, Functional Roles, and Conservation Concerns -- Threats Affecting the Calcium Carbonate Budget of the Animal Forest -- Animal Forest in the Chilean Fiords: Discoveries and Perspectives in Shallow and Deep Waters -- Animal Forests in Deep Coastal Bottoms and Continental Shelves of the Mediterranean Sea -- Coexistence in Cold Waters: Animal Forests in Seaweed-Dominated Habitats in Southern High-Latitudes -- Conservation and Management of Vulnerable Marine Benthic Ecosystems -- Framework-forming Scleractinian Cold-water Corals Through Space and Time: A Late Quaternary North Atlantic Perspective -- Global Biodiversity in Cold-Water Coral Reef Ecosystems -- Growth Patterns in Long-lived Benthic Suspension Feeders -- Impact of Bottom Fishing on Animal Forests: Science, Conservation and Fisheries Management -- Measuring the Impact of Anthropogenic Activity on Cold-water corals -- Suprabenthic Communities: the Forgotten Biodiversity

15 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables ; Population dynamics, morphology, density, lipid contents and prey capture rates were studied in a patchy population of the tree-like passive suspension feeder Eudendrium racemosum (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) during seasonal cycles. Density and size of colonies oscillated due to intraspecific competition (following the self-thinning rule) and predation (nudibranchs) showing size distributions in which alternatively large-and small-sized colonies were more abundant. Increase in the trophic impact on the water column was correlated with colony size (30.7 mg C m -2 d -1 in late spring-early summer compared with 10.2 mg C m -2 d -1 in the rest of the year). Lipid accumulation in the hydrocauli followed the same trend, being higher during the reproductive period (140 μg lipids mg -1 organic matter [OM]) compared with the rest of the year (70 μg lipids mg -1 OM). The short time cyclic variations reproduce, in a short time scale, the variations studied in other benthic suspension feeders, suggesting E. racemosum as a model organism to better understand the importance of large colonies in long-lived species in benthic-pelagic coupling processes. The accordance with the self-thinning rule found for this animal species strengthens the animal forest concept (a 3-dimensional live structure composed mainly by heterotrophic organisms such as gorgonians, bryozoans, and sponges), confirming the validity of the utilization, by marine ecologists, of the conceptual tools developed for terrestrial forest sciences. It is suggested that the impact of mature populations on benthic-pelagic coupling and biogeochemical cycles, simulated for long-lived species, could be validated by studying fast-growing species, in order to understand the importance of the preservation of complex structures and long-lived eco-engineering organisms in benthic habitats. © Inter-Research 2012 ; Support for this work was provided by a FPI fellowship from the 'Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia' and a Ramón y Cajal Contract (RyC-2007-01327) to S.R., by a CICYT grant and by the MAST-III-ELOISE European Union METRO MED Project. L.B. was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (Project No. 221072 ; Peer Reviewed

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 ; The study was funded by a 2003-2004 INTERREG project between Catalonia Languedoc Rouissillon "Pirineus Mediterrànis: La muntanya que uneix"' of the CSIC and CNRS, of the 2009-2013 European project LIFE+ INDEMARES "Inventario y designación de la red natura 2000 en áreas marinas del estado español" (LIFE07/NAT/E/000732) of the European Union, and by a PRIN 2010-2011 project (prot. 2010Z8HJ5M) on "Coastal bioconstructions: structure, function and management" Italian Ministry of Education, Univeristy and Research. ; Gorgonian species show a high morphological variability in relation to the environment in which they live. In coastal areas, parameters such as temperature, light, currents, and food availability vary significantly with depth, potentially affecting morphology of the colonies and the structure of the populations, as well as their connectivity patterns. In tropical seas, the existence of connectivity between shallow and deep populations supported the hypothesis that the deep coral reefs could potentially act as (reproductive) refugia fostering re-colonization of shallow areas after mortality events. Moreover, this hypothesis is not so clear accepted in temperate seas. Eunicella singularis is one of the most common gorgonian species in Northwestern Mediterranean Sea, playing an important role as ecosystem engineer by providing biomass and complexity to the coralligenous habitats. It has a wide bathymetric distribution ranging from about 10 m to 100 m. Two depth-related morphotypes have been identified, differing in colony morphology, sclerite size and shape, and occurrence of symbiotic algae, but not in mitochondrial DNA haplotypes. In the present study the genetic structure of E. singularis populations along a horizontal and bathymetric gradient was assessed using microsatellites and ITS1 sequences. Restricted gene flow was found at 30-40 m depth between the two Eunicella morphotypes. Conversely, no genetic structuring has been found among shallow water populations within a spatial scale of ten kilometers. The break in gene flow between shallow and deep populations contributes to explain the morphological variability observed at different depths. Moreover, the limited vertical connectivity hinted that the refugia hypothesis does not apply to E. singularis. Re-colonization of shallow water populations, occasionally affected by mass mortality events, should then be mainly fueled by larvae from other shallow water populations.

20 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables, supporting information https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160678.-- We have obtained the GenBank Accession numbers for all the sequences used in the work (GenBank from KX051564 to KX051577 and from KX002245 to KX002255) ; Gorgonian species show a high morphological variability in relation to the environment in which they live. In coastal areas, parameters such as temperature, light, currents, and food availability vary significantly with depth, potentially affecting morphology of the colonies and the structure of the populations, as well as their connectivity patterns. In tropical seas, the existence of connectivity between shallow and deep populations supported the hypothesis that the deep coral reefs could potentially act as (reproductive) refugia fostering re-colonization of shallow areas after mortality events. Moreover, this hypothesis is not so clear accepted in temperate seas. Eunicella singularis is one of the most common gorgonian species in Northwestern Mediterranean Sea, playing an important role as ecosystem engineer by providing biomass and complexity to the coralligenous habitats. It has a wide bathymetric distribution ranging from about 10m to 100 m. Two depth-related morphotypes have been identified, differing in colony morphology, sclerite size and shape, and occurrence of symbiotic algae, but not inmitochondrial DNA haplotypes. In the present study the genetic structure of E. singularis populations along a horizontal and bathymetric gradient was assessed using microsatellites and ITS1 sequences. Restricted gene flow was found at 30-40 m depth between the two Eunicella morphotypes. Conversely, no genetic structuring has been found among shallow water populations within a spatial scale of ten kilometers. The break in gene flow between shallow and deep populations contributes to explain the morphological variability observed at different depths.Moreover, the limited vertical connectivity hinted that the refugia hypothesis does not apply to E. singularis. Re-colonization of shallow water populations, occasionally affected by mass mortality events, should then be mainly fueled by larvae from other shallow water populations ; AG was funded by a I3P contract of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (Ref. I3P-BPD2005). SR wants to thank the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya to MERS (2014 SGR-1356) and the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship (ANIMAL FOREST HEALTH, project number 327845). The study was funded by a 2003-2004 INTERREG project between Catalonia-Languedoc Rouissillon ''Pirineus Mediterrànis: La muntanya que uneix'' of the CSIC and CNRS, of the 2009-2013 European project LIFE+ INDEMARES ''Inventario y designación de la red natura 2000 en áreas marinas del estado español'' (LIFE07/NAT/E/000732) of the European Union, and by a PRIN 2010-2011 project (prot. 2010Z8HJ5M) on 'Coastal bioconstructions: structure, function and management' Italian Ministry of Education, Univeristy and Research ; Peer Reviewed