Sclerobiosis: a term for colonization of marine hard substrates

ROMERO, M.V.; CASADIO, S. A. ; BREMEC, C.S.; GIBERTO, DIEGO AGUSTÍN

AMEGHINIANA

ASOCIACION PALEONTOLOGICA ARGENTINA

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2022

0002-7014

Ancient and modern marine environments are usually characterized by50 colonizers associated with living and dead organisms, as well as inorganic substrates.51 There are different terminologies to characterize these colonizations, i.e. if the roots of52 the terms refer to the colonizer or the colonized substrate. The terminology stated by53 Paul D. Taylor and Mark A. Wilson is considered here as background to characterize54 marine ancient and modern assemblages on hard substrates. These authors define the55 term ‘sclerobiont’, but not ‘sclerobiosis’. We focus on the term ‘sclerobiont’ and the56 need for a formal term, ‘sclerobiosis’. There is no definition of the latter term, which is57 beginning to be used as a synonym for ‘epibiosis’. Here we define ‘sclerobiosis’ as the58 spatial association between any kind of hard substrate and a diversity of life forms,59 which can occupy different spatial location of the hard substrate. With regard to60 colonization of marine hard substrates, ‘epibiosis’ is included within ‘sclerobiosis’. The61 goal is to clarify in which cases the use of each term is more appropriate, according to62 the criteria considered in the cited definitions of the terms. When studying different63 aspects of the colonization of living, dead and inorganic hard substrates, and even when64 we want to establish comparisons of colonizations over time and space, it is useful to65 have a term that encompasses all these associations between substrates and colonizers.66 ‘Sclerobiosis’ is proposed to aid a uniform language among deep-time and modern67 ecology researchers, especially those working on both settings.