INTRODUCTION
All the organisms living or inhabiting in the bottom regions of
the aquatic environment are termed benthos.
These benthos/benthic organisms live in a variety of bottom
environments of the aquatic ecosystems and are as diverse as
the plankton.
These bottom living organisms have direct contact with the
substrate, which limits the distribution of these organisms.
The factors such as the composition, size of the particles, its
firmness or resistance to penetration, its mobility and the food
they contain, are all known to have major influence on the
distribution of organisms.
CLASSIFICATION OF BENTHOS
BASED ON SIZE
• Macro benthos are organisms that are larger than one
millimeter
E.g. oysters, starfish, lobsters, sea urchins,
shrimps, crabs and corals.
• Meio benthos are between one tenth and one millimeter
in size.
E.g. ciliates, annelids , kinorhynchs, copepods
• Micro benthos are very tiny organisms. They are smaller
than one tenth of a millimeter.
E.g. bacteria and ciliates
TYPES OF MEIOBENTHOS
Endobenthic organisms are the meiofaunal sized
organisms which move within the sediment by displacing
particles
Mesobenthic organisms are the meiofaunal organisms
living and moving within the interstitial spaces of the
grains.
Epibenthic organisms are those that living at the sediment-
water interface
BASED ON MOBILITY
1. Sessile organisms: are those that do not have any
mobility, attached or fixed with the substratum or bottom of
the aquatic environments and rely on currents or other
mechanisms to bring food to them.
E.g. benthic algae (seaweeds) ,sea grasses ,corals , barnacles,
oysters etc
2. Vagrant benthos :are those that have locomotory
powers and either they can move rapidly or slowly. E.g. Only
animals are included under this category.
Based on the mode of life
Epifaunal organisms : animals which live on the
substratum.
infaunal organisms : are those that animals live into the
substratum.
Burrowers : Organisms that penetrate or burrow into the
unconsolidated bottom sediments are called burrowers.
Borers : organisms those that penetrate or bore the hard
rock or substrate materials are called borers.
Benthic plants
Green algae : include several calcareous species that are
important contributors to the sediment substrate, especially
in the shallow waters of the low latitudes.
brown algae : include the largest varieties of seaweeds
i.e. the kelps, which are very abundant in shallow cold waters.
Most of them are of commercial value as they contain algin, a
gelatinous material that is used as an emulsifier in ice-
creams, paints, drugs, and cosmetics.
red algae : represented by more species of seaweeds
than all other classes of algae. They may inhabit
relatively in the deep waters of the sub tidal regions of
the sea
Grasses : Some of these occupy the intertidal marsh
environment.
Benthic animals (zoo benthos)
Sedentary or Vagrant epifauna: They may live on
rigid substrate, firm sand or soft mud. While some move very
slowly, others move very quickly.
foraminifera: These tiny animals are typically less than a
millimetre in diameter with different shaped tests or shells
and most of which are multichambered
shelled invertebrates : arthropods (crabs and
lobsters), molluscs (clams, gastropods, chitons, and
octopuses) and echinoderms (sea urchins, sand dollars, star
fishes and sea cucumbers).
Arthropods : The crabs and lobsters are the largest and
fastest of the vagrant benthos. In addition, they have some
swimming ability, using either their tails and/or specially
adapted legs.
• Many species in this group live in the shelter of rocks, ledges
or other cover.
• They are scavengers and will eat almost anything that is
available.
echinoderms : They have numerous appendages in the form
of sucker feet or spines that are used for locomotion.
• The sea urchins live on hard substrates where they feed on
debris.
• Sand dollars have the poorest mobility but they can move
slowly by the whisker-like feet that surround their body.
Nearly all vagrant benthic molluscs have external
shells and move slowly, on the order of millimetres or
centimetres per minute.
Some, such as the chitons, are completely protected by
their shell and will move across a hard substrate
rasping and scraping food from the surface.
A few gastropods move slowly through the sediment,
ingesting whatever material they encounter, with little
or no selection. They digest the nutrient material and
excrete the mineral sediment.
Generally, these animals have thick, heavy shells to
protect them from predators and from the enemies.
Most have somewhat bulbous shapes, those that live
on soft sediment may have special adaptations in shell
morphology to prevent sinking into the mud. e.g.
Murex sp with spines.
Sessile epifauna
Many organisms are attached to the substrate throughout their
maturity and have no mobility at all. These include,
Brachiopods: attach with a stem like foot that extends from
near the hinge line that holds the shells together.
Mussels are about the same size and they attach themselves to a
hard surface with strong thread like structures, called byssus
threads which develop at the hinge line
INFAUNAL ORGANISMS
This group includes various meiofaunal and macro fauna
such as snails, clams, worms, sea urchins, and crustaceans.
Some groups are entirely infaunal, such as the tusk shells
(scaphopods). Infaunal organisms occupy two different
models of life.
Some graze or plow through the sediment (sediment
destabilizers) and others construct extensive burrow
complexes that they occupy and in which they move about
(sediment stabilizers)
There are also those that burrow or bore near the surface
and simply occupy that place; they do not move from place
to place unless uprooted by waves, currents, or other
organisms. .
Numerous varieties of worms also occupy this mode of life.
These types of infaunal organisms typically move only
when they are exhumed from their burrow.
These meiofaunal organisms have a size range similar to
that of some of the smaller mesoplankton and the micro
plankton.
• These include the members of the phyla Ciliophora,
turbellarians of the Platyhelminthes, Gastrotricha,
Kinorhyncha, Tardigrada, Annelida, and Arthropoda.
• These organisms are very abundant only in the intertidal
beaches and their biomass decreases with increasing depth
in the oceans.
• The abundant groups are nematodes and harpacticoid
copepods.
These meiofaunal forms a very good food source to most of
the macro faunal deposit feeders like larger polychaetes,
holothurids, fishes such as young ones flat fishes, gobies
and mullets.
The role of these as food of the macro faunal organisms
mainly depends on the nature of sediments.
That is the muddy sediment is known to harbour more
meiofaunal biomass in the top layer, which is more
accessible to the predators than the sandy sediment
These infaunal meiobenthos are also known to exhibit a
variety of feeding habits viz. herbivores- feeds on the
attached diatoms; detritus feeders, suspension feeders and
predators.
Suspension feeders are quite rare, due to lack of plankton
availability.
Large bodied animals and sessile benthos are poorly
represented in the marine meiobenthos, for example,
members of the phyla Echinodermata and Cnidarian.
The members of the phyla such as Phoronida,
Pogonophora, Porifera, Ctenophore, Hemichordates and
Chaetognatha are totally absent in the meiobenthos
communities.
There are some organisms, such as certain clams and
sponges that can bore into solid rock or shells.
This is done through a combination of physical rasping and
chemical reaction between substances secreted by the
organisms and the substrate
