Coastal Ecosystem Processes

There is a need for documentation and awareness of how necessary and delicate the interplay is among the biological and physical forces of ocean, land, and the atmosphere. Dr. Alongi, an outstanding marine scientist known worldwide for his work on tropical marine systems, presents research on coastal ecosystem processes from both the temperate and tropical perspectives. Coastal Ecosystem Processes includes the information on tropical marine and estuarine habitat problems such as pesticides, pollution, mining, declining fisheries yields, changes in the sea level, atmospheric CO2, and aquaculture. The importance of conserving fragile ecosystems such as mangroves and coral reefs is discussed.

Coastal Ecosystem Processes, written by the renowned marine scientist Daniel Alongi, describes how pelagic and benthic food webs, from beaches and tidal flats to the continental edge, process energy and matter. This volume focuses on recent advances and new developments on how food webs are closely intertwined with the geology, chemistry, and physics of coastal seas. Dr. Alongi presents a process-functional approach as a way of understanding how the energetics of coastal ecosystems rely not only on exchanges within and between food chains, but how such functions are influenced by terrigenous and atmospheric processes.
There is a need for documentation and an awareness of just how necessary, yet delicate, is the interplay of biological and physical forces between coastal ocean, land, and the atmosphere. Marine scientists today need to make informed management decisions about sustainable development and conservation of these fragile ecosystems. Coastal Ecosystem Processes provides present and future marine scientists the latest coastal ecosystem information to make the right decisions concerning the ecology of our oceans.