The Biology of Soft Shores and Estuaries [Paperback]

This book focuses on marine and estuarine soft sediments as complex and essential habitats for an astonishing variety of animals and plants whose lifestyles are intimately bound up with sediment structure. It discusses sediments as habitats first, then takes in turn the ecosystems found on sandy shores, mudflats and segrass beds, salt marshes and mangrove swamps, and life below the tidemarks. Adaptations of the organisms are fully described, and each chapter ends with a section on techniques. Later chapters discuss estuarine and lagoonal habitats, both of whoch contain primarily soft sediments, but add further complicating characteristics to those found in the sea. A discussion of estuarine food webs emphasizes the ways in which organisms interact. The book ends with a discussion of the ways in which marine and estuarine soft sediments have been abused by man, and some of the opportunities that have been taken to counteract these abuses.

1. Introduction: organisms, sediments, and water movements
2. The world of particles: a variety of habitats
3. The coarse extreme: life on sandy beaches
4. A fine option: life on mudflats and seagrass beds
5. Salt marshes and mangrove swamps
6. Life at the bottom: sublittoral sediments and community structure
7. Estuarine habitats and coastal lagoons
8. The estuarine benthos and its distribution
9. Life in the estuarine water column
10. Estuarine ecosystems
11. Uses and abuses: human impacts and counter-measures
Further reading
References
Glossary
Appendix: A brief classification of selected organisms
Index