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American Zoologist 1991 31(6):808-820; doi:10.1093/icb/31.6.808
© 1991 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
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Demographic Aspects of Marine, Soft Sediment Patch Dynamics1

ROMAN N. ZAJAC and ROBERT B. WHITLATCH
Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences, University of New Haven West Haven, Connecticut 06516
Department of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut Groton, Connecticut 06340

A generalized framework is presented which employs a demographic perspectivec (population vital rates, measures of population performance) of infaunal patch dynamics in order to understand population- and community-level successional processes in soft-sediment habitats. The model emphasizes the importance of demographic responses of component species following disturbance and how they vary as a function of the successional state within each patch. These characteristics provide a currency for assessing the effects of the disturbance on the overall population dynamics in a given habitat. Simple demographic simulations indicate the importance of seasonality in affecting the response of species to disturbance and the relative contributions of adult and larval colonization in affecting population dynamics. Further development of this demographic framework is presently constrained by a general lack of field data necessary to evaluate the demography of soft-sediment organisms.


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