Marine Animal Forests

1. Activity Rhythm Measurement in Suspension Feeders

   • Jean-Claude Duchêne

2. An Overview of the Animal Forests of the World

   • Sergio Rossi, Lorenzo Bramanti, Andrea Gori, Covadonga Orejas

3. Animal Forests in Deep Coastal Bottoms and Continental Shelf of the Mediterranean Sea

   • Andrea Gori, Giorgio Bavestrello, Jordi Grinyó, Carlos Dominguez-Carrió, Stefano Ambroso, Marzia Bo

4. Animal Forests in the Chilean Fjords: Discoveries, Perspectives and Threats in Shallow and Deep Waters

   • Günter Försterra, Verena Häussermann, Jürgen Laudien

5. Animal Forests Through Time: Historical Data to Understand Present Changes in Marine Ecosystems

   • Ruth H. Thurstan, John M. Pandolfi, Philine S. E. zu Ermgassen

6. Antarctic Marine Animal Forests: Three-Dimensional Communities in Southern Ocean Ecosystems

   • Julian Gutt, Vonda Cummings, Paul Dayton, Enrique Isla, Anke Jentsch, Stefano Schiaparelli

7. Benthic-Pelagic Coupling: New Perspectives in the Animal Forests

   • Sergio Rossi, Martina Coppari, Núria Viladrich

8. Brazilian Marine Animal Forests: A New World to Discover in the Southwestern Atlantic

   • Marcelo Oliveira de Soares, Tito Monteiro Cruz da Lotufo, Leandro Manzoni Vieira, Sula Salani, Eduardo Hajdu, Helena Matthews-Cascon et al.

9. Caribbean Coral Reefs: Past, Present, and Insights into the Future

   • Héctor Reyes-Bonilla, Eric Jordán-Dahlgren

10. Coexistence in Cold Waters: Animal Forests in Seaweed-Dominated Habitats in Southern High Latitudes

    • César A. Cárdenas, Américo Montiel

11. Conservation and Management of Vulnerable Marine Benthic Ecosystems

    • Ricardo Aguilar, Allison L. Perry, Javier López

12. Contrasting Effects of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reef “Animal Forests” Versus Seaweed “Kelp Forests”

    • S. Comeau, C. E. Cornwall

13. Deep-Sea Suprabenthic Communities: The Forgotten Biodiversity

    • Inmaculada Frutos, Angelika Brandt, Jean Claude Sorbe

14. Demography of Animal Forests: The Example of Mediterranean Gorgonians

    • L. Bramanti, M. C. Benedetti, R. Cupido, S. Cocito, C. Priori, F. Erra et al.

15. Diversity and Evolution of Octocoral Animal Forests at Both Sides of Tropical America

    • Juan Armando Sánchez

16. Drawing the Line at Neglected Marine Ecosystems: Ecology of Vermetid Reefs in a Changing Ocean

    • Marco Milazzo, Maoz Fine, Emanuela Claudia La Marca, Cinzia Alessi, Renato Chemello

17. Ecosystem Functions and Services of the Marine Animal Forests

    • Chiara Paoli, Monica Montefalcone, Carla Morri, Paolo Vassallo, Carlo Nike Bianchi

18. Ecosystem-Based Management: Opportunities and Challenges for Application in the Ocean Forest

    • Jake Rice, Anthony D. M. Smith

19. Energetics, Particle Capture, and Growth Dynamics of Benthic Suspension Feeders

    • Kenneth Sebens, Gianluca Sarà, Michael Nishizaki

20. Evolution of the Marine Animal Forest: EvoDevo of Corals, Sea Anemones, and Jellyfishes

    • Emma Rangel-Huerta, Griselda Avila-Soria, Ernesto Maldonado

During the last decades there has been an increasing evidence of drastic changes in marine ecosystems due to human-induced impacts, especially on benthic ecosystems. The so called “animal forests” are currently showing a dramatic loss of biomass and biodiversity all over the world. These communities are dominated by sessile suspension feeder organisms (such as sponges, corals, gorgonians, bivalves, etc.) that generate three-dimensional structures, similar to the trees in the terrestrial forest. The animal forest provide several ecosystem services such as food, protection and nursery to the associated fauna, playing an important role in the local hydrodynamic and biogeochemical cycles near the sea floor and acting also as carbon sinks. The present book focus its attention on these three dimensional animal structures including, for the first time, all the different types of animal forests of the world in a single volume.

During the last decades there has been an increasing evidence of drastic changes in marine ecosystems due to human-induced impacts, especially on benthic ecosystems. The so called “animal forests” are currently showing a dramatic loss of biomass and biodiversity all over the world. These communities are dominated by sessile suspension feeder organisms (such as sponges, corals, gorgonians, bivalves, etc.) that generate three-dimensional structures, similar to the trees in the terrestrial forest. The animal forest provide several ecosystem services such as food, protection and nursery to the associated fauna, playing an important role in the local hydrodynamic and biogeochemical cycles near the sea floor and acting also as carbon sinks. The present book focus its attention on these three dimensional animal structures including, for the first time, all the different types of animal forests of the world in a single volume.

• Inst. Environmental Science & Technology Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

  Sergio Rossi

• LECOB / Ocean Observatory, CNRS / Pierre and Marie Curie Univ, Banyuls-sur-mer, France

  Lorenzo Bramanti

• Dept. Marine Biology & Oceanography, Institute of Marine Sciences, Barcelona, Spain

  Andrea Gori

• Spanish Institute of Oceanography, Balearic Oceanographic Centre, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

  Covadonga Orejas

Sergio Rossi

Sergio Rossi is a research scientist specialized in marine natural resources and biological oceanography, focusing his attention in the health indicators of coastal benthic populations, coastal biological processes, flows of matter and energy in the benthic-pelagic coupling system, in the transplantation and aquaculture of marine organisms, and the management and conservation of marine wildlife. He is especially interested in the processes and conservation of the marine animal forests of the world.

Lorenzo Bramanti

Lorenzo Bramanti is a Marine Ecologist expert in conservation, spatial distribution, population and metapopulation dynamics of benthic suspension feeders. His field of research is at  the interconnection between functional ecology and conservation biology, focussing on the demographic processes regulating the dynamics of long living species, in particular corals, and their implications for conservation and marine spatial planning.

Andrea Gori

Andrea Gori is a marine biologist working on the study of the ecology and ecophysiology of marine ecosystem engineering species to provide understanding for the sustainable management and conservation of marine ecosystems located from the coastal area to the continental shelf and slope. The research has been developed combining SCUBA diving with the use of Remotely Operated Vehicles and manned submersibles for the extensive study of benthic species over their entire spatial distribution, as the best way to achieve a comprehensive understanding of their ecology and the variability of their responses to environmental features and human induced stressors.

Covadonga Orejas

Covadonga Orejas is a benthic ecologist, specialized on the study of Cold-water corals. Her main research interests focus on the biology and ecology of benthic communities dominated by those organisms and in general on the Marine Vulnerable Ecosystems (MVE). Her research deal with the study of the occurrence and spatial distribution patterns of CWCs linking those with their eco-physiological responses; she also investigate the species auto-ecology in order to understand their trophic ecology, reproduction and growth. She carried out most of her research on deep shelf areas in different oceans, using mostly non-invasive methods and applying her studies to the conservation of these fragile ecosystems.

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