Relationships between meiofaunal biodiversity and prokaryotic heterotrophic production in different tropical habitats and oceanic regions.

ABSTRACT: Tropical marine ecosystems are among the most diverse of the world oceans, so that assessing the linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem functions (BEF) is a crucial step to predict consequences of biodiversity loss. Most BEF studies in marine ecosystems have been carried out on macrobenthic diversity, whereas the influence of the meiofauna on ecosystem functioning has received much less attention. We compared meiofaunal and nematode biodiversity and prokaryotic heterotrophic production across seagrass, mangrove and reef sediments in the Caribbean, Celebes and Red Seas. For all variables we report the presence of differences among habitats within the same region, and among regions within the same habitat. In all regions, the richness of meiofaunal taxa in reef and seagrass sediments is

SUBMITTER: Pusceddu A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3948168 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature