Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Oceanography

Species Abundance, Spatial And Vertical Distributionsof Large Heteropods (Pterotracheidae And Carinariidae)In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Kristine A. Clark Mar 2019

Species Abundance, Spatial And Vertical Distributionsof Large Heteropods (Pterotracheidae And Carinariidae)In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Kristine A. Clark

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A description of species abundance, richness and distribution, and eye size of heteropod molluscs from the families Pterotracheidae and Carinariidae in the oligotrophic ecosystem of the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is described based on discrete-depth sampling protocols. The collections were comprised from two midwater sampling programs conducted sequentially after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWHOS): the Offshore Nekton Sampling and Analysis Program (ONSAP, 2011) and the Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico (DEEPEND, 2015-2018). Study materials from DEEPEND were collected during the initial five cruises of 2015-2017. These programs collected over 3,495 heteropods in two …


Sponges Structure Water-Column Characteristics In Shallow Tropical Coastal Ecosystems, Marla M. Valentine, Mark J. Butler Iv Jan 2019

Sponges Structure Water-Column Characteristics In Shallow Tropical Coastal Ecosystems, Marla M. Valentine, Mark J. Butler Iv

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Sponges can have powerful effects on ecosystem processes in shallow tropical marine ecosystems. They drive benthic-pelagic coupling by filtering dissolved and particulate organic matter from the water column, alter water chemistry in association with their symbiotic microorganisms, and increase habitat structural complexity. Anthropogenic degradation of coastal waters is widespread and can reduce the density and diversity of foundation species such as sponges, potentially diminishing their contributions to ecosystem processes. We used a novel mesocosm design that minimized artifacts associated with traditional single-species and closed-system filtration experiments to examine the effects of water turnover and sponge biomass on water-column properties. Using …