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Effects Of Dredging-Related Pressures On Critical Ecological Processes For Organisms Other Than Fish Or Coral. Report Of Theme 9 - Project 9.1 Prepared For The Dredging Science Node, Jessie Short, Matthew Fraser, Dianne Mclean, Gary Kendrick, Maria Byrne, Julian Caley, Doug Clarke, Andy Davis, Paul Ertemeijer, Stuart Field, Sam Gustin-Craig, John Huisman, John Keesing, Mick Keough, Paul Lavery, Ray Mansini, Kathryn Mcmahon, Kerrie Mergersen, Michael Rasheed, John Statton, Jim Stoddart, Paul Wu

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study reviewed environmental windows for organisms other than corals and fish such as sessile invertebrates, macroalgae and seagrasses. Environmental windows are periods of critical importance to the life history of a marine species, like reproduction and recruitment.

Aims

• To review the scientific literature on the timing and spatial extent of critical ecological processes relevant to tropical WA for marine primary producers and invertebrates (i.e. organisms other than coral and finfish) and the state of knowledge regarding potential effects of dredging on these key ecological processes. The review also had a particular focus on ecological processes in marine primary producers …

Antimicrobial Resistance To 14 Antimicrobials In Marine Coastal Waters Around Northern Ireland: Use Of The Novel Relative Resistance Index As A Marker Of Ecological Status, Peter J. A. Moore, Juluri R. Rao, B. Cherie Millar, Colin E. Goldsmith, Wilson A. Coulter, John E. Moore

Journal of Marine Research

Relatively little work has been published on the incidence of antibiotic resistance (ABR) in the marine microbiological environment, which is of importance to animal (fish, mammals, birds) health, zoonotic transmission, distribution of ABR bacteria with oceanic drift, and ultimately human health. A study was performed to determine the diversity of total ABR (intrinsic and acquired resistance) in marine bacteria in shallow coastal waters surrounding Northern Ireland through the use of a novel Relative Resistance Index (RRI) as a surrogate marker for ecological change, particularly in comparing marine water in commercial versus non-commercial sites. Total antibiotic resistance was observed to varying …

Invertebrate Larval Availability During Summer Upwelling And Downwelling On The Inner Continental Shelf Off New Jersey, Hongguang Ma, Judith P. Grassle

Journal of Marine Research

This study examined the effects of wind-driven, cross-shelf circulation on invertebrate larval supply to benthic habitats on the inner continental shelf off Tuckerton, New Jersey, USA. Study sites were located along an inshore/offshore transect in the LEO-15 research area at Beach Haven Ridge, a 12–20 m deep, shore-oblique sand ridge. Meroplankton was sampled using Moored, Automated, Serial Zooplankton Pumps which were programmed to take 250-l samples, ~1 m above the bottom, every 4 h. Upwelling and downwelling conditions were characterized using wind data from the nearby meteorological tower at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station, and bottom temperatures from LEO-15 …

Structure Of The Internal Boundary Layer Over A Patch Of Pinnid Bivalves (Atrina Zelandica) In An Estuary, Vladimir Nikora, Malcolm O. Green, Simon F. Thrush, Terry M. Hume, Derek Goring

Journal of Marine Research

Measurements of tidal-current boundary-layer flow over an experimental 2-m by 2-m patch of pinnid bivalves (Atrina zelandica) in a northern New Zealand estuary are presented. Previous work demonstrated a link between "mesoscale" (order 100 m) patchiness of the benthic biota and time-averaged boundary-layer dynamics. The aim in this new experiment was to describe the three-dimensional structure of turbulence at the patch scale (order 1 m). Flow over three densities of Atrina was investigated: 340 individuals per 4 m², 50 individuals per 4 m² and zero individuals. An internal boundary layer (IBL) grows downstream from the …

The Role Of Colonization In Establishing Patterns Of Community Composition And Diversity In Shallow-Water Sedimentary Communities, Paul V. R. Snelgrove, J. Frederick Grassle, Judith P. Grassle, Rosemarie F. Petrecca, Karen I. Stocks

Journal of Marine Research

To determine whether pattern and diversity in benthic sedimentary communities are set primarily at colonization or by post-settlement biological interactions, we collected faunal cores and conducted reciprocal sediment transplant experiments at a sandy and a muddy site at 12 m depth, ~3 km apart off New Jersey. Multivariate analyses of cores collected at these sites in September 1994 indicated differences in the taxa determining local pattern, with the bivalve Spisula solidissima and the polychaete Polygordius sp. being dominant at the sandy site, and oligochaetes, several polychaete species and the bivalve Nucula annulata dominant at the muddy site. Individual cores from …

Enzymatically Hydrolyzable Amino Acids In North Sea Sediments And Their Possible Implication For Sediment Nutritional Values, B. Dauwe, J. J. Middelburg, P. Van Rijswijk, J. Sinke, P. M. J. Herman, C. H. R. Heip

Journal of Marine Research

The nutritional value of peptidic material in five North Sea sediments that differ in organic matter quality has been investigated with an enzymatic approach measuring the digestibility (rate constant k of proteolysis by protease) and the proportion of bioavailable fraction of amino acids (%EHAA-i:THAA). The bioavailable fraction in sediments varied between 14-50% EHAA-i:THAA and was generally lower than in potential source organisms such as algae (40-43%), plankton (~80%) and bacteria (57-72%). The rate of proteolysis of the amino acids varied among stations (k = 0.3-3.1 h^-1) with a systematic decrease when going from labile to more refractory …

Observations Of The Influence Of Diurnal Convection On Upper Ocean Dissolved Gas Measurements, Craig L. Mcneil, David M. Farmer

Journal of Marine Research

An important example of the interaction between biological productivity and near-surface oceanography is the role of nocturnal convection and diurnal restratification in modifying the environment in which photosynthetic activity takes place. In situ time series measurements of dissolved oxygen reveal the effects of photosynthetic activity, respiration and redistribution by mixing. Moored thermistor time series and frequent CTD casts show that restratification during the day is confined to a warmer shallow surface layer where most of the biological production is expected to occur. The depth and rate of mixing is measured with neutrally buoyant floats which track the vertical excursions of …

Internal Tidal Bores In The Nearshore: Warm-Water Fronts, Seaward Gravity Currents And The Onshore Transport Of Neustonic Larvae, Jesus Pineda

Journal of Marine Research

Nearshore temperature fluctuations are associated with energetic cross-shore two-way flows that influence the onshore transport of neustonic larvae. Water temperature near the surface and bottom at two nearshore stations off southern California (6 and 15 m water depth, respectively) can drop sharply and subsequently rise. Two or more consecutive drops and rises can occur at diurnal or semidiurnal periodicities. The temperature increases may be accompanied by energetic seaward bottom currents together with sharp-edged warm-water fronts. (Warm-water fronts are defined here as linear seasurface features dividing parcels of water of different temperature.) Shoreward-moving surface fronts divided bodies of water of different …

Water Characteristics, Mixing And Circulation In The Bay Of Bengal During Southwest Monsoon, V. S. N. Murty, Y. V. B. Sarma, D. P. Rao, C. S. Murty

Journal of Marine Research

Influence of the freshwater influx, the wind forcing and the Indian Ocean monsoon drift current on the property distributions and the circulation in the Bay of Bengal during southwest monsoon has been quantified. At the head of the Bay, waters of low salinity, affected by the freshwater influx, occupy the upper 90 m water column. The isohaline 34.0 × 10⁻³ separating these waters from those of underlying saline waters shoals southward gradually and outcrops around 14N, 10N and 6N in the western, central and southeastern regions of the Bay respectively. The wind-stress-curl-induced upwelling effect is confined to depth limits …

Upwelling And Outwelling Effects On The Benthic Regime Of The Continental Shelf Off Galicia, Nw Spain, E. López-Jamar, R. M. Cal, G. González, R. B. Hanson, J. Rey, G. Santiago, K. R. Tenore

Journal of Marine Research

The benthic regime off the Galician coast of NW Spain was surveyed to assess biogenic enrichment from coastal upwelling and detritus outwelling from the rías, large coastal embayments: the Rías Altas along the northern and the Rías Bajas along the western coast, which have intense mussel aquaculture. Sediment samples were collected from 1984 to 1986 and used for geological, microbiological, and macrofaunal studies. Sub-bottom acoustic profiler records and grab and core samples identified two main mud deposits on the western shelf that were aligned north to south and parallel with the coastline. The major axis of the mud deposit, which …

Diel Migration And Feeding Patterns Of The Chaetognath, Sagitta Friderici, Off The West Coast Of South Africa, Venetia Stuart, Hans M. Verheye

Journal of Marine Research

The vertical distribution patterns of adult and juvenile Sagitta friderici were investigated over a 48 h period, using samples collected at different depth strata with an RMT 1 × 6 net. Juvenile chaetognaths were generally found at depths of less than 50 m throughout the day and night, and exhibited limited diel migration patterns. Adults, on the other hand, migrated more extensively and were generally found below 50 m during the day and scattered throughout the water column or near the surface at night. Using the mean depths at each sampling time, the migration patterns of adult chaetognaths closely followed …

On The Upwelling Circulation Over The Wide Shelf Off Peru: 2. Vertical Velocities, Internal Mixing And Heat Balance, Gary Shaffer

Journal of Marine Research

An analysis is presented of the mean coastal upwelling circulation over the wide shelf off Peru based on the current and temperature profiling measurements described in Shaffer (1982). The natural coordinate conservation method (NCCM) in temperature (T) space is applied to boxes formed from stations along two lines with 60 km alongshore separation. Mean distributions in x (cross-shelf coordinate) and T are obtained for diapycnal advection and mixing. The vertical component of isopycnal flow is also calculated and found to be considerably less than vertical, diapycnal flow in this region of strong upwelling and internal mixing.Richardson numbers ( …

Seasonal Lags Between Organic Carbon Deposition And Mineralization In Marine Sediments, David T. Rudnick, Candace A. Oviatt

Journal of Marine Research

The fate of phytoplankton detritus in the muddy sediments of shallow marine ecosystems was studied by labelling the water column of a 13 m³ microcosm with radiocarbon bicarbonate from January to July. By the end of the study, more than 9% of the original inorganic label was found as organic carbon in the top 10 cm of sediment. The accumulation of labelled organic carbon in the sediment totalled 14.5 gC/m². We estimate that this amount represented 15% of daytime net primary production and roughly half of the labelled organic carbon that was deposited on the sediment. The …

The Effects Of The Filter-Feeding Clam Mercenaria Mercenaria On Carbon Cycling In Experimental Marine Mesocosms, Peter H. Doering, Candace A. Oviatt, John R. Kelly

Journal of Marine Research

The metabolism and the fate of ¹⁴C labelled carbon was examined in 4 outdoor mesocosm (13 m³) tanks containing both benthic and pelagic compartments. Mesocosms with (16/m²) and without the clam, Mercenaria mercenaria were compared. System production, net and gross sedimentation of particulate carbon and benthic remineralization of dissolved inorganic nitrogen were all greater in mesocosms with clams. A filtration rate model, dependent on clam size and temperature, explained between 74–114% of the increased gross sedimentation in clam tanks relative to controls.The higher production in the clam tanks was at least in part due to …

Effect Of Physical Disturbance On Population Dynamics And Trophic Interactions Among Microbes And Meiofauna, Daniel M. Alongi

Journal of Marine Research

A series of laboratory experiments was conducted to assess the effects of physical disturbance of surface sediments on trophic interactions among bacteria, protozoa and meiofauna. Bacteria, zooflagellates, and populations of the hypotrich ciliate Aspidisca sp. and the nematode Diplolaimella chitwoodi were, at most sampling periods, not significantly affected by small-scale, daily disturbances. However, populations of the epibenthic harpacticoid copepod Tisbe holothuriae became disproportionately abundant in disturbed cultures.Bacterial numbers, growth rates and doubling times were affected little by the presence of meiofauna. The response of zooflagellates was not clear; populations of the ciliate Aspidisca sp. were, at most sampling intervals, significantly …

Habitat Dimensions Of Calanoid Copepods In The Western Gulf Of Mexico, James A. Cummings

Journal of Marine Research

The vertical distributions of 49 species (53 taxa) of calanoid copepods were determined in cyclonic and anticyclonic hydrographic features in the western Gulf of Mexico for three seasons of the year. The relative intensities of the features varied among seasons, while within seasons the physical structure between features was different. Since the same copepod species were present in both features for all seasons sampled, the contrasting hydrography provided a natural experiment in which to study the mechanisms, biological or physical, acting to influence species vertical distribution patterns. Hierarchial classification analysis revealed that groups of samples characterized by relatively homogeneous biotic …

A Comparison Of Moored And Free-Drifting Sediment Traps Of Two Different Designs, Nick Staresinic, Klaus Von Bröckel, Nenad Smodlaka, C. Hovey Clifford

Journal of Marine Research

The Kiel conical sediment trap and a 3:1 right cylinder were simultaneously deployed in both free-drifting and moored modes on four separate occasions over the Peruvian shelf in order to compare downward flux measurements derived from each….

Daily Patterns Of Fluorescence In Vivo In The Central Equatorial Pacific, Patrick J. Setser, Norman L. Guinasso Jr., David R. Schink

Journal of Marine Research

A daily cycle of fluorescence in vivo was strikingly apparent in surface waters of the central equatorial Pacific between latitudes 4N and 10S, but not in waters to the north or south of this zone. These changes in fluorescence did not represent changes in chlorophyll-a concentration, but rather a photoinhibition of fluorescence by ambient light. Higher nutrient and chlorophyll-a concentrations were found in the region where cycling occurred....

Large-Scale Interannual Physical And Biological Interaction In The California Current, Dudley B. Chelton, Patricio A. Bernal, John A. Mcgowan

Journal of Marine Research

Thirty years of temperature, salinity, steric height and zooplankton data are examined to explore the potential causes of large-scale biological variability in the California Current. The physical and biological properties are all found to be dominated by a pronounced interannual signal with very large spatial scale....

Bioerosion By Two Rock Boring Echinoids (Echinometra Mathaei And Echinostrephus Aciculatus) On Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, Anthony R. Russo

Journal of Marine Research

Bioerosion can be important to the configuration and destruction of coral reefs. Echinoids as grazers and burrowers can contribute significantly to coral reef erosion. Studies done on the turnover of gut contents of the two major burrowing echinoids on Enewetak atoll (Echinometra mathaei and Echinostrephus aciculatus) show a range of total CaCO2 erosion by both species from 80-325 g m-2 y-1....

The Influence Of Adults On The Settlement Of Spat Of The Clam, Tapes Japonica, John G. Williams

Journal of Marine Research

Substratum abundances of adult Manila clams (Tapes japonica) were manipulated in July 1976 on a portion of a beach located in the southern region of Puget Sound, Washington. Differences in larval settlement of clam spat were measured between samples taken from substra ta having different abundances of adult clams....

Patterns Of Resource Utilization And Coexistence In Marine Intertidal Deposit-Feeding Communities, Robert B. Whitlatch

Journal of Marine Research

Patterns of foraging and distribution of 19 species of infauna! deposit-feeding annelids are described from several intertidal soft-substratum habitats. Two major feeding groups were recognized: surface and sub-surface foragers. In both feeding groups, between-habitat species richness was positively correlated with food-resource supplies in sediments....

Small-Scale Patterns And Processes In A Soft-Substratum, Intertidal Community, James E. Eckman

Journal of Marine Research

Experimental manipulations and direct observations were combined to study small-scale dispersion patterns and their causes in an intertidal sand-flat community numerically dominated by sessile and sedentary tube dwellers. Individuals of several species exhibited gregariousness at scales as small as one centimeter. Experiments in which needles were placed in sediments to simulate animal tubes suggested that organisms are affected by patterns of flow which change over distances of several millimeters to a centimeter.

Vertical Variation In Particulate Matter In The Upper Twenty Centimeters Of Marine Sediments, Ralph Gordon Johnson

Journal of Marine Research

A microscopic examination was made of the vertical distribution and abundance of particulate matter in six dissimilar cores of marine sediment. Two of the cores were taken in the intertidal and two in the shallow subtidal at stations in the vicinity of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. One core was taken in the Hudson Canyon and another at abyssal depths. Biological stains were used to identify potential food particles at the sediment-water interface, at two cm below the interface and at five cm intervals to a maximum depth of 20 cm.

Infaunal Macrobenthos Off Cap Blanc, Spanish Sahara, Jean Nichols, Gilbert T. Rowe

Journal of Marine Research

Cap Blanc, Spanish Sahara is characterized by a nearshore benthic faunal province physically controlled by rates of sedimentation, conservatively estimated at 4 cm/yr, with a gradual transition across the continental shelf to a second province in a zone with high phytoplankton production of 2 gm C m-2 d-1 induced by upwelling at the continental shelf's outer margin....

Zonation And Faunal Composition Of Epibenthic Populations On The Continental Slope South Of New England, Richard L. Haedrich, Gilbert T. Rowe, Pamela T. Polloni

Journal of Marine Research

The epibenthic macrofauna, including demersal fishes, between 140 and 1900 m on the continental slope south of New England was found to be distributed in three zones: shallow (141-285 m), middle (393-1095 m), and deep (1270-1928 m). Fauna! boundaries were associated with the transition zones from shelf to upper continental slope and from upper to lower continental slope. The small Alvin Canyon was not faunally distinct. Fishes and echinoderms were the most abundant taxa, the former predominant in shallow and middle depths and the latter predominating deeper....

Regional Variations In Tropical High Intertidal Gastropod Assemblages, Geerat J. Vermeij

Journal of Marine Research

High intertidal gastropod assemblages in the Inda-Malaysian area and western Indian Ocean have a higher incidence of presumed antipredatory devices (obstructed apertures, inflexible opercula, low spires, and strong external shell sculpture) than high intertidal gastropods found elsewhere in the tropics....

A Study Of Photosynthetic Light Reactions, And A New Interpretation Of Sun And Shade Phytoplankton, Charles S. Yentsch, Robert W. Lee

Journal of Marine Research

The r elationship of photosynthesis to light intensity is examined, using phytoplankton cultured in different environments. The graphical means used in presenting the data are shown, and the desirability of normalizing the curves is discussed….

Some Distributional Features Of Mesopelagic Fishes Off Oregon, William G. Pearcy

Journal of Marine Research

Over 200 collections made between June 1961 and August 1962 with a six-foot Isaacs-Kidd midwater trawl at various depths down to 1000 m (mostly down to 200 m) along three latitudes off Oregon have provided preliminary data on species composition, sampling variability, diurnal vertical migrations, depth distribution, and seasonal and geographic variations of adult and large juvenile mesopelagic fishes....

The Migration Of Adult Female Blue Crabs, Callinectes Sapidus Rathbun, In Chincoteague Bay And Adjacent Waters, David G. Cargo

Journal of Marine Research

A total of 392 adult female blue crabs were tagged at four different points in the Chincoteague Bay area from 31 July to 7 September 1953. Over a period including June 1954, about 25% were recaptured, mostly to the south of the release points. Only three had moved northward, and only two were recaptured outside the area; one in Delaware Bay and one at Oyster, Virginia. Factors that may influence their movements and some ecological considerations are discussed.