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What, if anything, is a brackish-water fauna?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

R. S. K. Barnes
R. S. K. Barnes
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, U.K.
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Abstract

The nature of the fauna of brackish-water environments is reviewed. It is concluded that: (a) a specific brackish-water macrofauna does not exist; (b) in salinities of >c. 5-8‰ the fauna is one that also occurs in soft sediments under fully marine conditions when circumstances (possibly the absence of competing species) permit; (c) in salinities of <c. 5‰ the fauna is essentially a freshwater one; and (d) inability to cope physiologically with brackish water is not a factor of major importance in limiting species diversity in these habitats, except in the vicinity of 5‰ salinity. Caution is therefore advised in assigning brackish status to past environments on the basis of their preserved fauna.

Keywords

ecologyestuariesfaunal diversitylagoonspalaeoecologyphysiologyspecies composition
Type
Physiological adaptations in some recent and fossil organisms
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 80 , Issue 3-4: Environments and Physiology of Fossil Organisms , 1989 , pp. 235 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1989

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