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Soft-sediment estuarine benthic communities

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Estuaries, lagoons and sandy beaches are key coastal habitats in Uruguay. We attempt to understand the role of physical factors in structuring communities at several spatial scales. For instance, at small scales, lagoons show a high level of heterogeneity with regards to sediment composition, related with geomorphological features (e.g. sand arrows) leading to patchy distribution of macrofauna. At large scales we have recently found important variations in macrofauna among different estuarine systems (estuaries and lagoons): these patterns reflect animal-sediment relationships. In general most fauna responds negatively to the mud content of the sediment; in sandy sediments, two community variants are found depending on the propotion of coarse to fine sand.

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See here for our latest project on hypoxia in coastal lagoons

References:

 

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Benthic trophic status of aquatic transitional environments with distinct morphological and dynamic characteristics on the south-western Atlantic coast
 Pita AL, Giménez L, Kandratavicius N, Muniz P, Venturini N

  Marine and Freshwater Research online early (2017)

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Meiobenthic communities in permanently open estuaries and open/closed coastal lagoons of Uruguay (Atlantic coast of South America).

  N Kandratavicius, P Muniz, N Venturini, L Giménez

  Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 163, 44-53 (2015)

 

Macrofaunal patterns and animal-sediment relationships in Uruguayan estuaries and coastal lagoons (Atlantic coast of South America).

  Gimenez L, Venturini N, Kandratavicius N, Hutton M, Lafranconi A, Rodriguez M, Brugnoli E, Muniz  P

  Journal of Sea Research 87, 46-55 (2014)

 

Spatial patterns of macrofaunal community structure in coastal lagoons of Uruguay.

  Meerhoff E, Rodriguez-Gallego Gimenez L, Conde D, Muniz  P

  Marine Ecology Progress Series 492, 97-110 (2013)

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​Performance of biotic indices in naturally stressed estuarine environments on the Southwestern Atlantic coast (Uruguay): A multiple scale approach.

  Muniz P, Hutton M, Kandratavicius N, Lanfranconi A, Brugnoli E, Venturini N, Giménez L

  Ecological Indicators 19:89-97.​(2012).

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Unravelling the complex structure of a benthic community: A multiscale-multianalytical approach to an estuarine sandflat

   Giménez L, Dimitriadis C, Carranza A, Borthagaray A, Rodríguez M. 

   Estuarine Coastal Shelf Science 68, 462-472 (2006).

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Swimming ability and burrowing time of two cirolanid isopods from different levels of exposed sandy beaches.

    Yannicelli B, Palacios R, Giménez L, 2002. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 273, 73-88.

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Longshore patterns of distribution of macroinfauna in a Uruguayan sandy beach: an analysis at different spatial scales and their potential causes.

    Giménez L, Yannicelli B, 2000. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 199, 111-125. ​

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