التعريف: Living in the fluid medium (water or air) but unable to maintain their position or distribution independently of the movement of the water/air mass (adapted from Lincoln et al., 1998).
التعريف: The marine benthic biome (benthic meaning 'bottom') encompasses the seafloor and includes such areas as shores, littoral or intertidal areas, marine coral reefs, and the deep seabed.
التعريف: Skeletal support provided by hydrostatic pressure from a fluid filled cavity (e.g. the coelum) surrounded by muscles. Hydrostatic pressure provides skeletal support in sea anemones, jellyfish, nematodes, annelids, echinoderms, and other groups.
التعريف: A built-structure inhabited by an organism and essential to its survival, but not part of its body, composed of hardened (either rigid or flexible) secretions, with or without the addition of embedded particles, with those particles either selectively collected from the environment or passively becoming glued during formation (pers. comm. Read, G.).
التعريف: a sub-group of suspension feeding animals that feed by straining suspended matter and food particles from water, typically by passing the water over a specialized filtering structure