Bioerosion

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Sponge borings (Entobia) and encrusters on a modern bivalve shell, North Carolina. BoredEncrustedShell.JPG
Sponge borings ( Entobia ) and encrusters on a modern bivalve shell, North Carolina.
IUPAC definition

This definition describes the chemical process of bioerosion, specifically as it applies to biorelated polymers and applications, rather than the geological concept, as covered in the article text. Surface degradation resulting from the action of cells.

Contents

Note 1: Erosion is a general characteristic of biodegradation by cells that adhere to a surface and the molar mass of the bulk does not change, basically.

Note 2: Chemical degradation can present the characteristics of cell-mediated erosion when the rate of chemical chain scission is greater than the rate of penetration of the cleaving chemical reagent, like diffusion of water in the case
of hydrolytically degradable polymer, for instance.

Note 3: Erosion with constancy of the bulk molar mass is also observed in the case of in vitro abiotic enzymatic degradation.

Note 4: In some cases, bioerosion results from a combination of cell-mediated and chemical degradation, actually. [1]

Bioerosion describes the breakdown of hard ocean substrates and less often terrestrial substrates by living organisms. Marine bioerosion can be caused by mollusks, polychaete worms, phoronids, sponges, crustaceans, echinoids, and fish; it can occur on coastlines, on coral reefs, and on ships; its mechanisms include biotic boring, drilling, rasping, and scraping. On dry land, bioerosion is typically performed by pioneer plants or plant-like organisms such as lichen, and mostly chemical (e.g. by acidic secretions on limestone) or mechanical (e.g. by roots growing into cracks) in nature.

Bioerosion of coral reefs generates the fine and white coral sand characteristic of tropical islands. The coral is converted to sand by internal bioeroders such as algae, fungi, bacteria (microborers) and sponges (Clionaidae), bivalves (including Lithophaga ), sipunculans, polychaetes, acrothoracican barnacles and phoronids, generating extremely fine sediment with diameters of 10 to 100 micrometres. External bioeroders include sea urchins (such as Diadema ) and chitons. These forces in concert produce a great deal of erosion. Sea urchin erosion of calcium carbonate has been reported in some reefs at annual rates exceeding 20 kg/m2.

Fish also erode coral while eating algae. Parrotfish cause a great deal of bioerosion using well developed jaw muscles, tooth armature, and a pharyngeal mill, to grind ingested material into sand-sized particles. Bioerosion of coral reef aragonite by parrotfish can range from 1017.7±186.3 kg/yr (0.41±0.07 m3/yr) for Chlorurus gibbus and 23.6±3.4 kg/yr (9.7 10−3±1.3 10−3 m2/yr) for Chlorurus sordidus (Bellwood, 1995).

Bioerosion is also well known in the fossil record on shells and hardgrounds (Bromley, 1970), with traces of this activity stretching back well into the Precambrian (Taylor & Wilson, 2003). Macrobioerosion, which produces borings visible to the naked eye, shows two distinct evolutionary radiations. One was in the Middle Ordovician (the Ordovician Bioerosion Revolution; see Wilson & Palmer, 2006) and the other in the Jurassic (see Taylor & Wilson, 2003; Bromley, 2004; Wilson, 2007). Microbioerosion also has a long fossil record and its own radiations (see Glaub & Vogel, 2004; Glaub et al., 2007).

See also

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The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago (Ma) to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Mya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trace fossil</span> Geological record of biological activity

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parrotfish</span> Family of fishes

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green humphead parrotfish</span> Species of fish

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmel Formation</span> Geological formation in Utah, USA

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbonate hardgrounds</span>

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<i>Trypanites</i> Trace fossil

Trypanites is a narrow, cylindrical, unbranched boring which is one of the most common trace fossils in hard substrates such as rocks, carbonate hardgrounds and shells. It appears first in the Lower Cambrian, was very prominent in the Ordovician Bioerosion Revolution, and is still commonly formed today. Trypanites is almost always found in calcareous substrates, most likely because the excavating organism used an acid or other chemical agent to dissolve the calcium carbonate. Trypanites is common in the Ordovician and Silurian hardgrounds of Baltica.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matmor Formation</span>

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<i>Gastrochaenolites</i> Trace fossil

Gastrochaenolites is a trace fossil formed as a clavate (club-shaped) boring in a hard substrate such as a shell, rock or carbonate hardground. The aperture of the boring is narrower than the main chamber and may be circular, oval, or dumb-bell shaped. Gastrochaenolites is most commonly attributed to bioeroding bivalves such as Lithophaga and Gastrochaena. The fossil ranges from the Ordovician to the Recent. The first Lower Jurassic Gastrochaenolites ichnospecies is Gastrochaenolites messisbugi Bassi, Posenato, Nebelsick, 2017. This is the first record of boreholes and their producers in one of the larger bivalves of the globally occurring Lithiotis fauna which is a unique facies in the Lower Jurassic Tethys and Panthalassa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen parrotfish</span> Colorful species of fish in Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea

The queen parrotfish is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a parrotfish, in the family Scaridae. It is found on reefs in the tropical West Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Other common names include blownose, blue chub, blue parrotfish, blueman, joblin crow parrot, moontail, okra peji and slimy head. The young males and adult female queen parrotfish are a reddish-brown color, and quite different in appearance from the bluish-green color of the final phase male. This is a common species throughout its range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as "least concern".

<i>Petroxestes</i> Trace fossil

Petroxestes is a shallow, elongate boring originally found excavated in carbonate skeletons and hardgrounds of the Upper Ordovician of North America. These Ordovician borings were likely made by the mytilacean bivalve Corallidomus as it ground a shallow groove in the substrate to maintain its feeding position. They are thus the earliest known bivalve borings. Petroxestes was later described from the Lower Silurian of Anticosti Island (Canada) by Tapanila and Copper (2002) and the Miocene of the Caribbean by Pickerill et al. (2001).

<i>Sphenothallus</i> Extinct genus of aquatic animals

Sphenothallus is a problematic extinct genus lately attributed to the conulariids. It was widespread in shallow marine environments during the Paleozoic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sclerobiont</span>

Sclerobionts are collectively known as organisms living in or on any kind of hard substrate. A few examples of sclerobionts include Entobia borings, Gastrochaenolites borings, Talpina borings, serpulids, encrusting oysters, encrusting foraminiferans, Stomatopora bryozoans, and “Berenicea” bryozoans.

<i>Osprioneides</i> Trace fossil

Osprioneides is an ichnogenus of unbranched, elongate borings in lithic substrate with oval cross−section, single−entrance and straight, curved or irregular course. Osprioneides kampto Beuck and Wisshak, 2008 is the largest known Palaeozoic boring trace. It occurs in the Ordovician and Silurian (Wenlock) of Baltica. The borings are up to 120 mm long measuring 5–17 mm in diameter. The distribution of Osprioneides is more environmentally limited than that of Trypanites in the Silurian of Saaremaa, Estonia (Baltica). Osprioneides probably occurred only in large hard substrates of relatively deepwater muddy bottom open shelf environments. Osprioneides were relatively rare, as compared to Trypanites-Palaeosabella borings in the Wenlock of Saaremaa.

<i>Chaetosalpinx</i> Trace fossil

Chaetosalpinx is an ichnogenus of bioclaustrations. Chaetosalpinx includes straight to sinuous cavities that are parallel to the host's axis of growth. The cavity is circular to oval in cross-section and it lacks a wall lining or floor-like tabulae. They are common in tabulate and rugose corals from Late Ordovician to Devonian of Europe and North America. They may have been parasites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pholad borings</span>

Pholad borings are tubular burrows in firm clay and soft rock that have been created by bivalve molluscs in the family Pholadidae. The common names of clams in this family are "pholads", "piddocks", and "angel wings"; the latter because their shells are white, elongated and tend to be shaped like a wing and have sculpture somewhat reminiscent of a wing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olev Vinn</span> Estonian paleontologist (born 1971)

Olev Vinn is Estonian paleobiologist and paleontologist.

Liostrea is a genus of extinct oysters, marine bivalve mollusks in the family Gryphaeidae.

References

  1. Vert, Michel; Doi, Yoshiharu; Hellwich, Karl-Heinz; Hess, Michael; Hodge, Philip; Kubisa, Przemyslaw; Rinaudo, Marguerite; Schué, François (2012). "Terminology for biorelated polymers and applications (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)" (PDF). Pure and Applied Chemistry . 84 (2): 377–410. doi:10.1351/PAC-REC-10-12-04. S2CID   98107080. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-03-19. Retrieved 2013-07-27.

Further reading