Mean Mixed Depth of Sediments: The Wherefore and the Why

The activities and consequently the bioturbational effects of deposit-feeding organisms are largely restricted to a narrow surficial zone of marine sediments with a worldwide, environmental invariant mean of 9.8 cm with a standard deviation of 4.5 cm. Currently available theories of infaunal behavio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Limnology and oceanography 1998-05, Vol.43 (3), p.524-526
Main Author: Boudreau, Bernard P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Biological and medical sciences
Bioturbation
Food
Food security
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects. Techniques
Marine
Marine sediments
Mathematical constants
Methods and techniques (sampling, tagging, trapping, modelling...)
Modeling
Organic foods
Parametric models
Sediments
Water depth
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The activities and consequently the bioturbational effects of deposit-feeding organisms are largely restricted to a narrow surficial zone of marine sediments with a worldwide, environmental invariant mean of 9.8 cm with a standard deviation of 4.5 cm. Currently available theories of infaunal behavior cannot predict quantitatively this observation. A new simple model that accounts for the feedback between resource (food) abundance, its reactivity, and the intensity of bioturbation leads to a quantitative estimate of 9.7 cm. This model constitutes a fundamental advance in our understanding bioturbation.
ISSN:0024-3590
1939-5590
DOI:10.4319/lo.1998.43.3.0524