The diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum is a common inhabitant of inshore waters and can exist in different morphotypes that are thought to be adapted for survival in different habitats. Despite this diatom being widely used for physiological and genetic studies of microalgae, little is known about biochemical or physiological differences between the cell morphotypes. The present study was aimed at comparing differences in the antibacterial properties of the fusiform and oval morphotypes, the dominant cell types found in laboratory cultures of most strains of P. tricornutum. In cultures differing in proportions of fusiform and oval cells, there is a significant and positive correlation between the proportion of cells in the fusiform morphotype and the antibacterial activity of cell extracts. Extracts prepared from cultures enriched for fusiform cells (~76%) show greater antibacterial activity against the Gram-positive bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, than those prepared from pure (100%) oval cultures. Thus fusiform cells contain greater antibacterial activity per cell compared to the ovals. Gas–liquid chromatographic analyses of the extracts reveal that those from enriched fusiform populations contain significantly greater levels of the free fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), hexadecatrienoic acid (HTA) and palmitoleic acid (PA) than the pure oval cell cultures. These free fatty acids from P. tricornutum have been previously shown by us to have potent antibacterial activity against S. aureus. Free fatty acids, released from damaged microalgal cells, defend the microalgal population against grazing predators but, here, we suggest that these free fatty acids could also act against pathogenic bacteria in the vicinity of the algae. As cell extracts from the fusiform cells contain greater quantities of these fatty acids, fusiform cells may have greater potential than the ovals for this type of protection.

The diet of the spider crab, Maja squinado, was studied in the rocky subtidal areas of the Ría de Arousa (Galicia, north-west Spain), by analysing the gut contents of crabs caught in the summer and winter of 1992. The highly diverse diet was made up primarily of macroalgae and benthic invertebrates that were either sessile or had little mobility. The most important prey were the seaweeds Laminariaceae (43% of the frequency of occurrence and 15% of the food dry weight), Corallina spp. (38% and 3%), molluscs [the chiton Acanthochitona crinitus (15% and 1%), the gastropods Bittium sp. (30% and 2%), Trochiidae and others and the bivalve Mytilus sp. (32% and 12%)], echinoderms [the holothurian Aslia lefevrei (32% and 18%) and the echinoid Paracentrotus lividus (16% and 7%)] and solitary ascidians (18% and 6%). The variability in diet composition was determined by the season (Laminariaceae, Corallina spp., P. lividus, Mytilus sp., gastropods and chitons appeared in greater frequency in winter, while the solitary ascidians and A. lefevrei were consumed to a greater extent in summer) in addition to sexual maturity (prey such as Bittium sp. or Trochiidae were more common in juveniles). Moreover, the changes in the food consumption rate were linked primarily to the moult stage. Feeding activity plummeted during the phases immediately preceding and following ecdysis (stages D0–D3–4 and A), and the diet was less diverse during these phases. No feeding differences were found that could be linked to sex. The composition of the diet of Maja squinado appears to be determined by the seasonal abundance of the different prey in subtidal rocky areas and by their availability (depending on their behavioural and anatomical characteristics, mainly mobility and the presence of hard external structures). Moreover, life history factors have little importance in the variability of the diet composition and only the moult cycle has a considerable effect on feeding rate.

A study has been made of the ecology of the small intertidal lamellibranch Lasaea rubra at various tidal levels at Plymouth and Wembury. In addition, experiments have been carried out to investigate physiological and behavioural differences arising from varying amounts of submersion at different tidal levels, and the following findings have been made.

During the first hour after their submersion by sea water, L. rubra from high up the shore filter at a rate approximately twice that of animals which live lower down. After 2 h, however, both sets of animals filter at the same rate.

High-level animals respond significantly faster to wetting by splash and can tolerate a considerable range of salinity. They also respire at a rate approximately twice that of low-level animals. Respiration, however, is not detectable when the animal is not immersed in sea water.

The gonads of 1,121 oysters have been examined at various periods from a few hours to twelve months after the individuals had spawned as females; the material for the research was obtained by collection and experiment. In 702 individuals taken with young in the mantle cavity the gonad shows a progressive development of maleness in its primary sexual characters; within a mean period of 2¼ hours after spawning eggs, the gonad was found in 50 per cent of cases with only young spermmasses developing, followed at later periods by a progressive ripening of the sperm-masses, until in individuals carrying shelled and black-coloured larvae 77 per cent contained abundant ripe sperm-masses as well as advanced developing sperm-masses.

In 444 individuals examined at various periods after extruding their larvæ, the development of sperm was found to continue for about a month after egg-spawning, and to abate in about the second month. In from 2 to 3 months after egg-spawning sperm-development is completed and the male phase begins to wane, and a small percentage of individuals may become female or actively female-functioning again. In 12 months after the last egg-spawning a significant number of individuals become once more functional females.

The varieties of mixed sexes found in O. edulis are denned and their frequencies shown by an analysis of samples—from two widely separated beds—examined at the beginning of the breeding season in 1926. Experiments on the rate of growth of sperm-masses and on determining of age at different stages of development in embryos and larvæ are given.

A study of nineteen species of monotocardian veligers belonging to eight different superfamilies reveals the uniformity of structure of the alimentary tract up to the time of metamorphosis. Results of feeding experiments with nineteen species of unicellular algae show that there is also uniformity in the functioning of the gut.

Infra-red images of sea surface temperature indicate that shelf sea frontal regions around the British Isles are characterized by cyclonic eddies with typical wavelengths between 20 and 40 km and growth time scales in the order of a day. A similar analysis for the shelf-break region of the Celtic Sea based on the interpretation of structures observed in infra-red sattllite images and a survey at sea shows that this region is also characterized by eddies. These eddies are usually associated with a general lowering of sea surface temperature that occurs over the shelf-break region in late summer. In this paper, observed eddy scales are compared with estimates based on theory originally developed for large-scale (3000 km wavelength) atmospheric eddies and the role of eddies in cross-frontal exchange is examined in more detail.

By the use of a “conditioned response” technique it has been shown that teleostean fishes respond “purposively” to an increase in temperature of the water surrounding them of between 0-03° C. and 0-10° C. It is probable that the former figure is true for all the species investigated, but it has only been practicable to establish it with certainty in a few sedentary forms

Growth of the littoral harpacticoid copepod Tigriopus brevicornis O. F. Müller was measured in an intertidal rock pool. The generation time at the field temperature of 15°C was 31 days, and growth during this period resulted in an increase of 1.1829 μg body nitrogen.

Measurements of nitrogen excreted by developmental stages were made on animals removed from the natural population. Ammonia comprised on average 89.7% of the total nitrogen excreted by adults. Some measurements of phosphorus excretion indicated a nitrogen: phosphorus ratio in excretory products of 4.86. Adult females excreted 27.2 μg N/mg dry wt/day, representing a release of about 30% of body nitrogen daily. Excretory rates of earlier copepodite and naupliar stages were higher.

The efficiency with which ingested food was assimilated was measured for animals feeding on natural suspended matter obtained from the pool. Assimilation efficiencies averaged 75.4%.

Egg production was measured at a range of temperatures in the laboratory, enabling an estimate to be made of total production by an individual female. At 15°C females produced an average of ten egg sacs in 30 days.

Measurement of nitrogen lost during moulting suggested a value of 6% of total body nitrogen.

The data obtained have been used to estimate growth efficiency in terms of nitrogen during the entire life-history of a female in the pool. Gross growth efficiency calculated for the period of growth from egg to adult is 13.0% and the net efficiency 17.2%. Efficiencies of egg production by the adult female are higher, the gross efficiency being 22.1% and the net 29.3%. During the entire life-span 72.9% of assimilated nitrogen is expended in metabolism, 3.9% in growth, 0.4% as moults, and 26.6% in egg production.

Twenty-four out of 240 fishes caught by bottom lines at 366–3333 m had something in their stomachs. Stomach contents included parts of cephalopods, fish, cetaceans and bottom-living invertebrates, thin rubber sheet and terrestrial mammal bones. The material provides evidence that four species of cephalopod are at least partially demersal and suggests a means by which the tapeworm Phyllobothrium could pass from its secondary to its primary host.

During the five biological cruises of R.R.S. ‘Discovery’ between 1967 and 1971 a total of 31 bottom lines with 1483 hooks were fished in depths of water between 366 and 3333 m. The stomachs of the 240 fish caught were examined and 216 (90%) proved to be empty. The high incidence of empty stomachs is thought to be due to frequent loss of food during the ascent from great depths and accounts for our poor knowledge of the feeding habits of demersal fish living at depths exceeding 400 m.

The present collection of food from 25 stomachs (24 from ‘Discovery’ collections and one from a fish caught by Mr G. R. Forster from R. V. ‘Sarsia’) of fish belonging to 11 species (Table 1) probably gives little indication of the usual diet of the fish concerned, but its nature prompts some useful speculation and the rarity of such observations justifies placing them on record (Bigelow & Schroeder, 1948; Marshall, 1954).

All the fish were caught on lines which lay on the bottom for several hours and it is our firm belief that they were hooked while on or very near the bottom.

Variations in the breeding habits of cirripedes are discussed.

The effect of temperature and light during various stages of gonad development has been determined for B. balanoides.

Constant illumination inhibits breeding, the inhibition relating to the later stages of gonad development.

There is a critical temperature above which breeding will not take place, the level of which may possibly be raised by decreased periods of illumination. A period of 4–6 weeks at less than 12 h of light per day and below the critical temperature is required for maturation of the gametes. It is difficult to advance the date at which egg-masses are laid down by more than a few weeks.

The results are discussed in relation to the animal's ecology. There is a very close adaptation to boreo-arctic conditions; the north-south gradient in the time at which the eggs are fertilized is related to the temperature gradient but the constancy from year to year of this date in any one locality under the same micro-environment cannot be explained on the basis of temperatures. Light periodicity is probably involved.

The harbour porpoise is seriously depleted and threatened with extinction in the Baltic Sea. It is usually assumed that Baltic porpoises form a separate population unit, although the evidence for this has been disputed lately. Here, a 3-D geometric morphometric approach was employed to test a number of hypotheses regarding population structure of the harbour porpoise in the Baltic region. 277 porpoise skulls from Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Poland were measured with a suite of 3-D landmarks. Statistical analyses revealed highly significant shape differences between porpoises from the North Sea, Belt Sea and the inner Baltic Sea. A comparison of the directionalities of the shape vectors between these units found differences that cannot be attributed to a general, continual shape trend going from the North Sea to the inner Baltic Sea. These vectors indicate a morphological adaptation to the specific sub-areas. Such adaptation may be the result of the topographic peculiarities of the area with variable topography and shallow waters, e.g. in the Belt Sea porpoises, there may be a greater reliance on benthic and demersal prey. The present results show that isolation by distance alone is an unlikely explanation for the differences found within the Baltic region and thus support previously reported molecular indications of a separate population within the inner Baltic Sea.

C. ericina Parke & Manton has been re-investigated to add salient features of micro-anatomy from the electron microscopy of thin sections and also to add photographs of living cells taken with anoptral contrast light microscopy.

The most important new observations concern the scales which are shown to be essentially two-layered plates in which the layers in the very large spined scales have become separated except at their edges, with the outer layer greatly hypertrophied to produce a hollow spine with a flared base closed at the bottom by a flat plate. The patterns of external marking on the two layers are very similar in both plate-scales and spines in this species and the orientation of both with respect to the cell surface has been demonstrated by a section of the scales in situ.

A dual stable isotope approach (δ13C and δ15N) was used to investigate inter- and intra-specific variations in feeding ecology and habitat use of 7 delphinids from coastal/estuarine, continental shelf and offshore marine environments from southern Brazil: Tursiops sp., Orcinus orca, Stenella frontalis, Steno bredanensis, Delphinus delphis, Pseudorca crassidens and Lagenodelphis hosei. Teeth from 50 specimens acquired from stranded animals were analysed in this study. Tursiops sp. and O. orca are the most coastal species, and had the highest δ13C values followed by the continental shelf species S. frontalis, S. bredanensis and D. delphis. Lagenodelphis hosei showed the lowest δ13C value, demonstrating its typical offshore habitat. One group of P. crassidens had the lowest δ15N values, indicating their low trophic level feeding habit while two specimens of the same species showed the highest mean nitrogen isotope value. This first study on stable isotope values of delphinids from southern Brazil provides substantial new information about the trophic ecology, habitat use and feeding environments of these animals.

Experiments on herring (Clupea harengus L.), sprat (Sprattus sprattus (L.)) and whiting (Merlangius merlangus (L.)) showed that when these fish make rapid swimming movements, such movements are preceded by fast pressure pulses in the surrounding sea water. Thefirst (a) phases of these pulses had durations of from 1–5 to 3–5 ms. The pulses could be excited in free-swimming fish by both visual and auditory stimuli and the latencies to the latter ranged from 5 to 8–5 ms. Identical pulses could be elicited by giving electrical stimuli to anaesthetized fish; these pulses had latencies from 34 to 7 ms.

The pressure fields around the fish were measured on suspended anaesthetized fish stimulated electrically. At any instant the fields of the fast pulses produced by whiting had the same polarity at all positions round the fish and pressure decayed inversely with the 1–5 powerof distance. The a phase of the fast pulse was usually a decompression.

The fields around a stimulated herring were different. The pressures on both sides oppositethe centre of the fish were of one polarity while those around the head and the tail were of the opposite polarity, the pattern of pressure being symmetrical about the long axis of the fish.In our experiments the a phase opposite the centre of the fish was always a compression. The amplitudes of these pulses declined with distance by the power of 2–5. In all species in our experiments the fast pulses were followed by slower pulses associated with swimming movements; these slower pulses had opposite polarities at corresponding points on the two sides of the fish.

There are two critical stages in the life history of Laminaria hyperborea (Gunn.) Fosl. The first is the attachment of the zoospores (meiospores) to suitable rock surfaces and the second is the successful fusion of gametes. The second clearly partly depends on the first which is in turn affected by the efficiency of zoospore production by the sporophyte and the time of year that this takes place. Because of lack of information on these aspects the present study of reproduction in the sporophyte was undertaken.

Mussel seed Mytilus galloprovincialis (Bivalvia: Mytilidae) from two origins (rocky shore and collector ropes) was cultivated on a raft in the Ría de Arousa (north-west Spain), from seeding to thinning out, for 226 d (November 1995–July 1996) and two aspects of metabolism, oxygen consumption rate (VO2) and ammonia excretion rate (VNH4-N) were studied in situ.

The model derived from multiple analysis of oxygen consumption accounted for 91.9% of the variance, based on dry weight of the mussels and the environmental factors quality of food (organic content) and mainly chlorophyll-a. Seed origin also showed significant influence. The seasonal pattern of the oxygen consumption can be attributed mainly to the variation of chlorophyll-a, which showed a higher range of values in the spring months.

Origin of seed did not show a homogeneous effect on oxygen consumption throughout the cultivation period. Collector rope mussels showed higher oxygen consumption values at the beginning of the cultivation period and after the first 15 d, but the rocky shore mussels showed a higher oxygen consumption between days 22 and 110. Energy-conserving patterns and lower condition index at the onset of the experiment for rocky shore mussels could explain these initial differences.

Multiple analysis on the variation of ammonia excretion rate provided a model that accounted for 72.6% of the variance based on dry weight of mussels, seed origin and the environmental parameters chlorophyll-a and total particulate matter. The rocky shore mussels showed a significantly higher excretion values for most of the cultivation period, although there was no constant tendency throughout. High excretion values were recorded between January and March, whilst for the rest of the cultivation period values were low.

The O:N index was higher in collector rope mussels for most of the cultivation period, which may suggest a more favourable energy metabolism and/or a more appropriate nutritional state for these specimens.

The microscale spatial distributions of viruses were investigated in three contrasting environments including oligotrophic open ocean, eutrophic coastal and estuarine habitats. The abundances of two discrete populations of both viruses and heterotrophic bacteria were measured at spatial resolutions of between 1 and 5 cm using purpose-designed microscale sampling equipment and flow cytometric sample analysis. Within open water samples, virus distributions were characterized by non-normal distributions and by ‘hotspots’ in abundance where concentrations varied by up to 17-fold. In contrast to patterns generally observed at larger spatiotemporal scales, there was no correlation between bacterial and viral abundance or correspondence between bacteria and virus hotspots within these samples. Consequently, strong hotspots and gradients in the virus:bacteria ratio (VBR) were also apparent within samples. Within vertical profiles taken from above the sediment–water interface within a temperate mangrove estuary, distributions of planktonic viruses were characterized by gradients in abundance, with highest concentrations observed within the 1–2 cm immediately above the sediment surface, and virus distributions were correlated to bacterial abundance (P<0.01). The patterns observed in these contrasting habitats indicate that microscale patchiness of virus abundance may be a common feature of the marine environment. This form of heterogeneity may have important implications for virus–host dynamics and subsequently influence microbial trophodynamics and nutrient cycling in the ocean.

Assemblages of fish associated with exposed and sheltered sides of breakwaters and adjacent rocky reefs were sampled at coastal marinas on the north-west coast of Italy. Contrary to expectations, assemblages associated with the exposed side of artificial breakwaters did not differ from those at adjacent natural rocky reefs. Assemblages of fish associated with the sheltered side of breakwaters did, however, differ from adjacent rocky reefs and, to a lesser extent from the exposed side of the breakwaters. The internal sheltered side of marinas supported fewer species than did the external breakwaters and adjacent reefs and lacked common reef-associated species, such as Chromis chromis and Oblada melanura. In contrast, they supported greater numbers of new recruits of the sparid, Diplodus vulgaris.

The length, weight, calorific value and organic matter content of Calanus finmarchicus, Stage V, males and females, were measured in monthly samples taken from April 1962 to June 1963.

There is considerable variation throughout the year and all stages had their maxima of weight and calorific value in spring, 1962, and winter 1962–63.

The calorific value and weight are closely correlated so that, knowing the dry weight, the calorific value can be calculated from it. The correlation is closest in Stage V and, for these, only the dry weight need be known. Since the relation-ship is slightly different for males and females the sex of the adult must be known as well as the dry weight; curves showing these relationships are given.

The calorific value obtained from organic-matter analysis at times deviates widely from the values obtained in direct bomb calorimetry, and it is concluded that in the method used not all the fat is accounted for.

In weight, calorific value, and organic matter, but not in length, Stage V for a good part of the year show higher figures than adults.

In comparing the weights with those of other years and other places, the annual pattern is found to vary considerably. The spring maximum seems to occur every year, but there may be either a maximum or a minimum in autumn and winter.

Observations have been made on living pogonophores obtained from the continental slope to the south-west of the British Isles and from the continental shelf off the west coast of Ireland.

The blood of five species examined contains haemoglobin in solution. The tube appears to be freely permeable to water, but less so to electrolytes and small molecules.

The appearance and behaviour of living embryos is noted and the spermatozoon of one species figured. Possible feeding and other behaviour is discussed and it is concluded that the best line of future investigation lies with the shallow-water forms found in the Arctic Ocean.