Spatial and temporal variability of fouling communities on oyster spat collectors at Inhaca Island Southern Mozambique: Exploring the influence on recruitment of the oysters and .

In the transition from pelagic larva to benthic adult, larvae likely encounter a diverse assemblage of resident invertebrates in their habitat, which may also compete for space during post-settlement periods. Fouling fauna in rocky and seagrass habitats on Inhaca Island, southern Mozambique, was evaluated over 4 months in each of two seasons on oyster collectors fixed at 2 cm above the bottom. As expected, two species of oysters recruited to tiles: the rock oyster in rocky habitats and the pearl oyster, in seagrass habitats.

Spatial and seasonal variability in benthic impact of mussel farms: Predicting and mitigating impacts using ambient oxygen conditions.

Environmental impacts are a cause for concern when developing and expanding aquaculture and to be sustainable potential negative effects need to be addressed. The intensity and extent of these impacts likely vary among sites and seasons, depending on multiple factors including the physical and biological setting and operational aspects. Using a combination of sampling techniques, we investigated the spatial variability in epibenthic impacts in eleven commercial mussel farms, on the Swedish west coast.

Mixing apples and oranges: Assessing ecological status and its confidence from multiple and diverse indicators.

Ecosystem responses to increasing human pressures are complex and diverse, affecting organisms across all trophic levels. This has prompted the development of methods that integrate information across many indicators for environmental management. Legislative frameworks such as the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), specifically prescribe that integrated assessme nt (IA) of ecological status must consider indicators representing various biological and supporting quality elements.

Recent change in spatial distribution of the European flat oyster () inferred from field data and empirical models of living oysters and empty shells.

Marine coastal areas are increasingly affected by human activities resulting in changes in species and habitat distributions. Understanding these patterns and its causes and consequences is important for conservation and restoration of such changing habitats. One habitat that has been heavily affected by human use are the North Sea oyster beds which once were abundant but have lost large parts of its coastal distribution due to overexploitation.

Identifying high-density areas of oysters using species distribution modeling: Lessons for conservation of the native and management of the invasive () in Sweden.

Aim: Understanding spatial patterns of the distribution of adult native oyster, , and the invasive is important for management of these populations. The aim of this study was to use ensemble SDM's to (a) identify and predict conservation hotspots, (b) assess the current level of protection for and (c) quantify the amount of overlap between the two species where interactions with are most likely.

Location: Skagerrak, Sweden.

In situ characterization of benthic fluxes and denitrification efficiency in a newly re-established mussel farm.

Mussel farming has been proposed as a mechanism to mitigate eutrophication in coastal waters. However, localizing the intensive filtration of organic matter by mussels can cause a concomitant enrichment of organic matter in sediments below farms, which may influence biogeochemical processes and fates of nutrients in the system. In the context of mitigating eutrophication, it is important to quantify sedimentary changes induced at early life stages of mussel farms.

An open-source, citizen science and machine learning approach to analyse subsea movies.

Background: The increasing access to autonomously-operated technologies offer vast opportunities to sample large volumes of biological data. However, these technologies also impose novel demands on ecologists who need to apply tools for data management and processing that are efficient, publicly available and easy to use. Such tools are starting to be developed for a wider community and here we present an approach to combine essential analytical functions for analysing large volumes of image data in marine ecological research.

Developing benthic monitoring programmes to support precise and representative status assessments: a case study from the Baltic Sea.

Benthic habitats and communities are key components of the marine ecosystem. Securing their functioning is a central aim in marine environmental management, where monitoring data provide the base for assessing the state of marine ecosystems. In the Baltic Sea, a > 50-year-long tradition of zoobenthic monitoring exists.

Assessment of the population of in Sweden: A marginal population of significance?

Unlabelled: The European flat oyster is an economically and ecologically important species subjected to extensive protection and restoration efforts, due to sharp population declines in Europe. In Sweden, occurs at the northern fringe of its range. Knowledge of the distribution and abundance of the species is limited, and the size of the population has never been estimated.

Cleaning up seas using blue growth initiatives: Mussel farming for eutrophication control in the Baltic Sea.

Eutrophication is a serious threat to aquatic ecosystems globally with pronounced negative effects in the Baltic and other semi-enclosed estuaries and regional seas, where algal growth associated with excess nutrients causes widespread oxygen free "dead zones" and other threats to sustainability. Decades of policy initiatives to reduce external (land-based and atmospheric) nutrient loads have so far failed to control Baltic Sea eutrophication, which is compounded by significant internal release of legacy phosphorus (P) and biological nitrogen (N) fixation. Farming and harvesting of the native mussel species (Mytilus edulis/trossulus) is a promising internal measure for eutrophication control in the brackish Baltic Sea.

Developing methods for assessing abundance and distribution of European oysters (Ostrea edulis) using towed video.

Due to large-scale habitat losses and increasing pressures, benthic habitats in general, and perhaps oyster beds in particular, are commonly in decline and severely threatened on regional and global scales. Appropriate and cost-efficient methods for mapping and monitoring of the distribution, abundance and quality of remaining oyster populations are fundamental for sustainable management and conservation of these habitats and their associated values. Towed video has emerged as a promising method for surveying benthic communities in a both non-destructive and cost-efficient way.

Approaches for integrated assessment of ecological and eutrophication status of surface waters in Nordic Countries.

We review approaches and tools currently used in Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) for integrated assessment of 'ecological status' sensu the EU Water Framework Directive as well as assessment of 'eutrophication status' in coastal and marine waters. Integration principles for combining indicators within biological quality elements (BQEs) and combining BQEs into a final-integrated assessment are discussed. Specific focus has been put on combining different types of information into indices, since several methods are currently employed.

Modeling and predicting the growth of the mussel, Mytilus edulis: implications for planning of aquaculture and eutrophication mitigation.

The increased pressure on the marine ecosystems highlights the need for policies and integrated approaches for sustainable management of coastal areas. Spatial planning based on geographic information of human activities, ecological structures and functions, and their associated goods and services is a fundamental component in this context. Here, we evaluate the potential of predictive modeling to provide spatial data on one ecosystem function, mussel growth for use in such processes.

Testing the potential for predictive modeling and mapping and extending its use as a tool for evaluating management scenarios and economic valuation in the Baltic Sea (PREHAB).

We evaluated performance of species distribution models for predictive mapping, and how models can be used to integrate human pressures into ecological and economic assessments. A selection of 77 biological variables (species, groups of species, and measures of biodiversity) across the Baltic Sea were modeled. Differences among methods, areas, predictor, and response variables were evaluated.

Using vessel monitoring system data to improve systematic conservation planning of a multiple-use marine protected area, the Kosterhavet National Park (Sweden).

When spatial fishing data is fed into systematic conservation planning processes the cost to a fishery could be ensured to be minimal in the zoning of marine protected areas. We used vessel monitoring system (VMS) data to map the distribution of prawn trawling and calculate fishing intensity for 1-ha grid cells, in the Kosterhavet National Park (Sweden). We then used the software Marxan to generate cost-efficient reserve networks that represented every biotope in the Park.

Predicting the distribution of out-of-reach biotopes with decision trees in a Swedish marine protected area.

Through spatially explicit predictive models, knowledge of spatial patterns of biota can be generated for out-of-reach environments, where there is a paucity of survey data. This knowledge is invaluable for conservation decisions. We used distribution modeling to predict the occurrence of benthic biotopes, or megafaunal communities of the seabed, to support the spatial planning of a marine national park.

Disturbance-diversity models: what do they really predict and how are they tested?

The intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH) and the dynamic equilibrium model (DEM) are influential theories in ecology. The IDH predicts large species numbers at intermediate levels of disturbance and the DEM predicts that the effect of disturbance depends on the level of productivity. However, various indices of diversity are considered more commonly than the predicted number of species in tests of the hypotheses.

Physical and biological disturbances interact differently with productivity: effects on floral and faunal richness.

Physical and biological disturbances are ecological processes affecting patterns in biodiversity at a range of scales in a variety of terrestrial and aquatic systems. Theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that effects of disturbance on diversity differ qualitatively and quantitatively, depending on levels of productivity (e.g.

The red alga Bonnemaisonia asparagoides regulates epiphytic bacterial abundance and community composition by chemical defence.

Ecological research on algal-derived metabolites with antimicrobial activity has recently received increased attention and is no longer only aimed at identifying novel natural compounds with potential use in applied perspectives. Despite this progress, few studies have so far demonstrated ecologically relevant antimicrobial roles of algal metabolites, and even fewer have utilized molecular tools to investigate the effects of these metabolites on the natural community composition of bacteria. In this study, we investigated whether the red alga Bonnemaisonia asparagoides is chemically defended against bacterial colonization of its surface by extracting surface-associated secondary metabolites and testing their antibacterial effects.

Equal rates of disturbance cause different patterns of diversity.

Empirical evidence suggests that disturbance has profound effects on the species diversity of aquatic and terrestrial assemblages. Conceptual ecological theories, such as the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH), predict maximum diversity at intermediate levels of disturbance. Tests of the predictive power and generality of these models are, however, hampered by the fact that the meaning and units of "disturbance" are not clearly defined.

Male discrimination of female mucous trails permits assortative mating in a marine snail species.

Recent research has shown the potential for nonallopatric speciation, but we lack an adequate understanding of the mechanisms of prezygotic barriers and how these evolve in the presence of gene flow. The marine snail Littorina saxatilis has distinct ecotypes in different shore microhabitats. Ecotypes hybridize in contact zones, but gene flow is impeded by assortative mating.

Maximum species richness at intermediate frequencies of disturbance: consistency among levels of productivity.

Development of a mechanistic understanding and predictions of patterns of biodiversity is a central theme in ecology. One of the most influential theories, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH), predicts maximum diversity at intermediate levels of disturbance frequency. The dynamic equilibrium model (DEM), an extension of the IDH, predicts that the level of productivity determines at what frequency of disturbance maximum diversity occurs.