Abstract
The flow of oceanic water over and around an obstacle such as a seamount or island has the potential to profoundly affect the local biological community (Hamner and Hauri, 1986; Wolanski and Hamner, 1988). If the obstacle reaches the surface, or nearly so, the most obvious effect will be the breaking of waves into a surf on the upstream side. The violence of the breaking waves will not only erode the substrate, but will also aerate the water, transport sediment, mix and transport propagules, and detach and carry away sessile organisms (Vogel, 1981; Denny, 1988). Even in the absence of breaking surf, a net directed flow could produce inhomogeneities in spatial distributions of the biological community and the inorganic materials (Roden, 1987). Thus, interpretations of observed spatial distributions of biota must take into account the predominant water flow pattern.
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© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Vaughan, S., Skinner, R.K., Schmieder, R.W., McGuire, B. (1996). Ocean Currents at Rocas Alijos. In: Schmieder, R.W. (eds) Rocas Alijos. Monographiae Biologicae, vol 75. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2917-8_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2917-8_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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