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Full-Text Articles in Marine Biology

Investigating The Effects Of Changes In Light Quality On Different Life History Stages Of Seagrasses, Simone Strydom Jan 2017

Investigating The Effects Of Changes In Light Quality On Different Life History Stages Of Seagrasses, Simone Strydom

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Seagrass meadows provide crucial ecosystem services to the coastal zone but globally are threatened. Seagrass loss to date has mainly been attributed to anthropogenic activities that reduce light quantity, such as dredging, declining water quality from urban and agricultural run-off and eutrophication. However, light quality (wavelengths of light) is also altered by these anthropogenic stressors as well as natural events. This study consisted of three main components: (1) characterising light quality to which seagrasses are exposed across a local natural estuarine-ocean gradient and with a human impact pressure; (2) the influence of monochromatic light quality (blue λ=451 nm; green λ=522 …


Residence Time In Coastal Canopies, Maryam Abdolahpour Jan 2017

Residence Time In Coastal Canopies, Maryam Abdolahpour

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Aquatic canopies provide important ecosystem services such as improved water quality, oxygen flux, sediment stabilisation and trapping and recycling of nutrients. The ecological health of coastal canopies and the significant ecosystem services they provide depends largely on the continuous exchange of dissolved and particulate materials across the canopy boundaries. In coastal environments, where flow is typically wavedominated, vertical mixing is believed to be the dominant process controlling residence time and, therefore, exchange. However, experiments have shown that wave-driven flows over rough boundaries, such as canopies, generate strong onshore mean currents (75% of the orbital velocity far above the canopy) near …