Lorena P. Arribas

Instituto de Biología de Organismos Marinos (IBIOMAR-CONICET) · Laboratorio de Reproducción y Biología Integrativa de Invertebrados Marinos (LARBIM)

Environments contaminated with metals can induce accumulation of trace metals in soft tissues of marine fauna resulting in negative effects. The oral brooding sea star Anasterias minuta is one of the most conspicuous macro-invertebrate top-predator species in the Atlantic Patagonian rocky shores that could accumulate trace elements and be used as b...

Lower limits in the vertical distribution of rocky shore species have traditionally been considered as set by biotic factors, such as predation, grazing, or space competition. Yet, evidence in this regard comes mostly from sloping shores, i.e continuous surfaces without a noticeable topographic break. Here, we illustrate that this is not necessaril...

Climate change has consequences over marine organisms and their behavior. Echinoderms have been found to be negatively affected on righting time, survival, feeding rate or growth by high temperatures, low salinity or their interaction. We analyzed the effects of temperature and salinity fluctuation under a climate change scenario on feeding rate, r...

Identifying susceptible regions where biodiversity changes occur at fast rates is essential in order to protect and ameliorate affected areas. Large-scale coastal monitoring programs that focus on long-term variability are scarce, yet the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Pole to Pole is currently developing a regional collaboration throughou...

At first sight, intertidal mussel beds give the impression of being depauperate communities, as mussels are by far the dominant macroscopic organisms. However, a hidden diversity of small species find suitable living conditions among the mussels or on their shells. In intertidal mussel beds from the northwest Atlantic coast, we identified 50 invert...

This data set describes the abundance of 50 invertebrate taxa found in intertidal mussel beds along the Atlantic Canadian coast. This information resulted from a regional‐scale study that investigated the effects of wave exposure on the richness and composition of invertebrate assemblages from intertidal mussel beds. Abundance data are provided for...

Ecosystem engineers can modulate harsh abiotic conditions, thus creating habitat for species that cannot withstand the local environment. In this study, we investigated if vacant boreholes created by the rock-boring bivalve Petricola dactylus increase species richness in the low intertidal zone of a Patagonian rocky shore characterized by intense h...

Rocky shore communities usually show complex patterns of compositional variation in space and time. Yet, this does not rule out the possibility of observing coherent temporal trends in aggregate community variables (e.g., biomass and number of species or individuals within functional groups or whole communities) due to broad-scale, seasonal, or int...

Mussel attachment strength varies in space and time, frequently in association with variations in wave exposure. Yet, it remains uninvestigated whether different rock types can contribute to variation in mussel attachment. Here we compared the attachment strength of the mussel Brachidontes rodriguezii between soft and hard intertidal rock substrate...

In Patagonian coastal areas, intertidal benthic communities are exposed to extreme physical conditions. The interaction between harsh environment and anthropogenic pressure can generate changes in population biology of marine invertebrates, like density and reproduction. The oral brooding sea star Anasterias minuta is a key organism in food chains...

The density, size, and morphology of coastal invertebrate species often predictably vary with latitude. In this study we evaluate whether the density, size, and morphology of the pulmonate limpet, Siphonaria lessonii, in the Southwestern Atlantic varies in agreement to the predictions of the abundance-centre hypothesis (i.e., higher densities by th...

Lithophaga patagonica: Un pequeño invertebrado que desempeña una importante y poco conocida función ecológica en la franja costera alternativamente cubierta y descubierta por la marea.

Structural modification of the environment by physical ecosystem engineers often allows for the occurrence of species that are not able to establish in unengineered habitats, thus leading to increased species richness at the landscape-level (i.e., areas encompassing engineered and unengineered habitats). Unlike previous studies that focused on the...

Competitive interactions between individuals from a single or different species can regulate population densities and individual growth. Two mussel species, Brachidontes rodriguezii and Perumytilus purpuratus coexist in the rocky intertidal zone of La Lobería, Río Negro Province, Argentina. The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of intra-...

Echinoderms are often of ecological importance in intertidal and subtidal waters, especially as predators and herbivores but also as prey. Several groups of echinoderms respond in a different way to environmental variables, contributing to some of the biodiversity patterns found along latitudinal gradient. This work listed the echinoderms species o...

Studies of biodiversity of echinoderms from South America have increased in recent years. Here we summarize sampling done on three expeditions along the Argentinean coast (35º-55º S) and near the Antarctic Peninsula. The first campaign, Mejillón II (M-II; 2009), was carried out between 35º-39º S and covered a depth range between 10 to 140 m. The se...

Intraspecific competition for space is generally invoked as the chief process limiting crowding in sessile or highly sedentary marine invertebrates. However, the mechanisms by which high conspecific density induces individual removal or mortality, in turn restraining crowding in these organisms, generally remain uninvestigated. Here we illustrate t...

Organisms boring into intertidal consolidated sediments generate bioerosion. It is generally unknown, however, whether they can significantly contribute to coastline retraction. In this paper, we describe endolithic communities and estimate bioerosion and physical erosion rates at three southwestern Atlantic intertidal sites (37, 38, and 42A degree...

Mussels often act as ecosystem engineers in rocky intertidal habitats, favoring the occurrence of many small invertebrates by increasing habitat complexity and improving local environmental conditions. This study tests the hypothesis that invertebrate assemblages from intertidal mussel beds differ between wave-sheltered and wave-exposed habitats. T...

The boring bivalve Lithophaga patagonica (d'Orbigny, 1842) is a locally abundant inhabitant of hard substrata in the coastal waters of the Southwestern Atlantic. In this paper, we describe the growth, age and mortality of three intertidal rock-boring populations of L. patagonica and one subtidal oyster shell (Ostrea puelchana) boring population. An...

Ecosystem engineers can modify habitat, creating structural microhabitats. This structural complexity can affect species richness. Marine ecosystem engineers are able to produce local effects in combination with environmental variables (e.g. to create more humid habitat during low tides). We tested the hypotheses that if there is a relationship bet...