Offshore wind energy is a renewable technology able to deliver significant energy in a sustainable manner, able to satisfy more than 4% of EU electricity consumption by 2020. The installation of offshore wind farms incorporates new material and substrate to the marine biota. These new structures are located on the seabed and can function as artificial reefs (AA) by providing hard substrate and rocky microhabitats incorporate and provide shelter for the growth of species bound to the...

In 2007 the alien microalga Chysophaeum taylorii Lewis & Bryan (Pelagophyceae) started colonising the north-eastern Sardinian coast, affecting benthic communities in the Marine Protected Area of Tavolara Punta Coda Cavallo with the mucilage it exudes during Summer.

The Biodiversity of the Gulf of Mexico (BioGoMx) project is an on-going project, started in 2004, to synthesize information on the marine biota. It was an affiliated project of the Census of Marine Life. Phase I was the compilation by 140 authors, of over 15,000 species, and publication of the results as a book in 2009. Phase II was the conversion of the checklist into a database; the distributional data were made available in early 2010 at iOBIS and other biodiversity portals, and the full...

The SIBM (Italian Society for Marine Biology) has been entrusted by Italian Ministry of Environment to revise and to update the checklist of Italian marine species. Calderini's checklist (1993-95) recorded some 57,000 species belonging to Italian fauna of which 9,309 marine species. The updating process was completed in 2005 and is currently available for consultation both on the SIBM website ( www.sibm.it ) and on the Ministry of Environment database. A further checklist of Macrophyta,...

Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are isolated, short-lived habitats with dynamic biological communities. An extreme case of vent habitat occurs on NW Rota, an active submarine volcano in the Mariana Arc. Explosive volcanism observed since 2003 and mass-wasting create a highly volatile environment for the shrimp Opaepele loihi- one of only two abundant species present. The goal of this study was to infer spatio-temporal changes in the genetic diversity of O. loihi and to determine its recruitment...

Posidonia oceanica ((L.) Delile, 1813) meadows play a fundamental role on biodiversity organization. Despite the causes are complex and still discussed, P. oceanica meadows are experiencing a fragmentation process, particularly on coastal areas. In this study we addressed the effect of meadow fragmentation on detritus associated macroinvertebrates  abundance and diversity and on the structure of detritus based food webs by comparing a no-fragmented portion of the meadow with a fragmented...

Boring invertebrates increase bedrock topographical complexity and overall habitat diversity. Intertidal Petricola dactylus burrows persist after bivalve death, infill with sediments, and provide habitat to other species in otherwise flat limestone surfaces that are subject to intense wave splash. Here, we analyzed if vacant burrows of the bivalve P. dactylus increase invertebrate richness in a Patagonian intertidal limestone outcrop. Areas with and without burrows were compared by...

The nestling and facultatively boring pectinid bivalve Pedum spondyloideum (Gmelin, 1791) is an obligate associate of living scleractinian corals that occurs in the Indo-Pacific. It attaches byssally and lives embedded in the coral skeleton. In order to enhance the understanding of the nature of associations between Pedum and its scleractinian host corals recent field surveys have been conducted in the north Red Sea and in different areas of the ‘Coral Triangle'. These studies have shown...

Jellyfish abundance and composition were investigated at three-hour intervals for a 48-hour period from a fringing reef of Redang Island, Malaysia. The abundance of jellyfish in the water column was significantly higher during the night, being 2.2 times as high (90 ± 87 indiv. m-3) as during the day (40 ± 111 indiv. m-3). The jellyfish community was dominated by the calycophoran siphonophore Diphyes chamissonis, constituting 80.1% of the total jellyfish abundance, followed by Aglaura...

Water quality investigations and underwater visual observations were carried out in ten fish farms located at Datça-Bozburun and Gökova specially protected areas (southern Aegean Sea, Turkey). Investigations revealed that the substrate was disturbed and species composition changed as a consequence of increased sedimentation and excessive nutrient input at the vicinity of fish farms where the current velocity was low.