Benthic Ecology in Coastal and Brackish Systems—2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

A significant proportion of marine anthropogenic activities take place in the coastal zone, thereby inducing changes in marine communities and ecosystems. In order to maintain the goods and services provided by coastal ecosystems, monitoring indicators and management schemes have been adopted in different parts of the world, such as the European Water Framework Directive or the Clean Water Act in North America. All these regulatory frameworks aim to provide the tools for the assessment of ecosystem condition or health based on the measurement of different abiotic or biotic elements (e.g., nutrients, chlorophyll a, benthic macrofauna, angiosperms, chemical contamination, bacteria). On the other hand, it is understood that benthic ecological possesses are of great importance for the maintenance of ecosystem status in coastal ecosystems. Although both issues (ecological status indicators and ecological processes) have been extensively studied in the scientific literature, the quantitative link between the two has not been adequately addressed.

The primary aim of this special issue is to explore the relation between ecosystem health as quantified by monitoring tools developed in the context of different directives and benthic ecosystem processes, functions, and geochemical variables in the coastal zone. Specifically, we invite field studies or experiments linking ecosystem health and functions, both of which may be assessed via different tools, organisms, elements, or analyses, as long as the link between the two is described and quantified. The status of the ecosystems should not be the result of the study, but it can be used as a “factor” in different types of analyses, and then geochemical variables, fluxes, or other types of ecological processes should be compared between different levels of ecological status. The assessment of ecological status may be based on different methodologies, depending on the characteristics and objectives of the study.

Dr. Panagiotis D. Dimitriou
Guest Editor

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• ecological status
• ecosystem status
• benthic ecology
• anthropogenic effects
• biological trait analysis
• marine biodiversity
• marine functional diversity
• benthic indicators

• Benthic Ecology in Coastal and Brackish Systems in Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (8 articles)