Abstract
Air and water differ in a set of physicochemical properties, a disparity which has contributed to the evolution of markedly different life forms in terrestrial and marine habitats. A brief overview of the effects of these abiotic differences on the selective pressures is given. One typically aquatic life form are attached animals, e.g. sessile suspension feeders, which are an important component in many benthic habitats and may dominate hard bottom communities. A system to characterize marine functional groups is presented and its usefulness illustrated with the help of a large-scale dataset of marine fouling communities.
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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Wahl, M. (2009). Habitat Characteristics and Typical Functional Groups. In: Wahl, M. (eds) Marine Hard Bottom Communities. Ecological Studies, vol 206. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/b76710_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/b76710_1
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