A multi-year study of acoustic propagation and ambient sound in a Thalassia testudinum seagrass meadow in a shallow sub-tropical lagoona).

Seagrasses provide a multitude of ecosystem services and act as important carbon sinks. However, seagrass habitats are declining globally, and they are among the most threatened ecosystems on earth. For these reasons, long-term and continuous measurements of seagrass parameters are of primary importance for ecosystem health assessment and sustainable management.

The microbiome of the habitat-forming brown alga Fucus vesiculosus (Phaeophyceae) has similar cross-Atlantic structure that reflects past and present drivers.

Latitudinal diversity gradients have provided many insights into species differentiation and community processes. In the well-studied intertidal zone, however, little is known about latitudinal diversity in microbiomes associated with habitat-forming hosts. We investigated microbiomes of Fucus vesiculosus because of deep understanding of this model system and its latitudinally large, cross-Atlantic range.

Bacterial Communities Show Algal Host ( spp.)/Zone Differentiation Across the Stress Gradient of the Intertidal Zone.

The intertidal zone often has varying levels of environmental stresses (desiccation, temperature, light) that result in highly stress-tolerant macrobiota occupying the upper zone while less tolerant species occupy the lower zone, but little comparative information is available for intertidal bacteria. Here we describe natural (unmanipulated) bacterial communities of three congeners (, high zone; , mid zone; , low zone) as well as those of transplanted to the high zone (Dry and Watered treatments) and to the mid zone (Procedural Control) during summer in Maine (United States). We predicted that bacterial communities would be different among the differently zoned natural congeners, and that higher levels of desiccation stress in the high zone would cause bacterial communities of Dry transplants to become similar to , whereas relieving desiccation stress on Watered transplants would maintain the mid-zone bacterial community.