Benthic community-mediated sediment dynamics

We assessed the influence of benthic communities on sediment properties in large defaunation experiments in replicated 16 m 2 plots on a tidal flat in the Westerschelde estuary (SW Netherlands). We compared microphytobenthos and benthic macrofauna recovery and recolonisation between control and defaunated sediments during 8 mo following the defaunation, focussing on how the temporal scale of biological responses interact with the temporal scale of sedimentological developments (grain size, bed level, erosion threshold). In the first month, microphytobenthos (surface chl a content) increased to... Mehr ...