Particulate Organic Detritus and Detritus Feeders in Coastal Food Webs

The production, delivery, and use of detritus structure coastal marine ecosystems, especially benthic communities is dominated by deposit feeders. Specialized detritivores act in concert with bacterial and fungal decomposers to make the detritus available for a wide variety of organisms. Deposit feeders integrate many adaptations for detritus use because sediment is the repository for much of the detritus. Detritus-based food webs differ from grazing food webs only by the interaction of detritus and detritivores. The wide range of detritus types in coastal environments, together with specialized adaptations of detritivores, has made the understanding of coastal food webs an intriguing challenge.