Description
The oceans and their adjacent environments cover more than 71% of the Earth’s
surface, being the invertebrates the most diversity group in this hug ecosystem.
Understanding the ecological relationships of marine invertebrates is fundamental to
assess the marginal marine health. In this sense, the goals of present studied is
identifying the ecological relation between hermit crabs and bryozoan communities. A
total of 1,337 shells from death assemblages available in the foreshore zone of
Coastal Plain of the Rio Grande do Sul State were analyzed in order to verify how
epibionts are present in the shells from death assemblages, and to know whether
bryozoans occur in both gastropod and bivalve shells or only in one of these two
groups. Balanomorphs, bryozoans, serpulids and bivalves represent the epibionts
observed in this study. However, bryozoans only were observed in gastropod shells.
According to the results, hermit crabs maybe represent an important influence in the
development of bryozoan communities keeping the gastropod shells available in the
sediment/water interface. Finally, this study provides an important database to
ecological managements in coastal zones.
