Methods for the study of deep-sea sediments, their functioning and biodiversity

This book has been written to provide practical information for scientists, postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students approaching the study of deep-sea habitats, their characteristics, functioning, and biodiversity. It is complementary to the texts and manuals already available for the study of the marine benthos, a key textbook being, for instance, Methods for the Study of Marine Benthos edited by A. Eleftheriou and A. McIntyre. This book includes all relevant protocols and details for the design and analysis of benthos and for the characterization of sediments. If you do not own it, please acquire it! Your library certainly needs such a comprehensive view of the marine benthos. The main difference between the present book and others already available is that in this book there are detailed protocols dealing with the analysis of benthic viruses (or virio-benthos), benthic prokaryotes, including Bacteria and Archaea, protozoa, foraminifera, meiofauna, macrofauna, and megafauna. The quantitative study of the biotic components includes analyses of their biodiversity, protocols for investigating some aspects of functional biodiversity, and some key variables commonly used to describe ecosystem functioning. In the last few years there has been growing interest in the integration of biodiversity (taxonomy and autoecology) with ecosystem functioning (sinecology and interdisciplinary). It is my opinion, however, that this book is new within the panorama of the available textbooks, in the sense that it can be considered as the first book attempting to link research on biodiversity with a standardized approach to the study of the functioning of the marine ecosystems. I hope this book is recognized for the significant, if not exhaustive, contribution it makes to the expansion and widening of research in the field of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in different habitats and ecosystems types. This is only the beginning, a starting point to be further implemented by scientists affiliated to that network of excellence called Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystems Functioning (MARBEF), which has been able to bring together for the first time marine benthonologists, biogeochemists, and taxonomists with the perspective of obtaining a better understanding, not only of the number of new species in different marine systems, but also on how biodiversity interacts with the functioning of these ecosystems.