Definition: Hard framework, internal or external, which supports and protects softer parts of plant, animal or unicellular organism, and to which muscles usually attach in animals, includes skeletons (derived from Lawrence, 2005).
Definition: Living in a fluid medium (eg: water) but unable to maintain their position or distribution independently of the movement of the fluid (adapted from Lincoln et al., 1998).
Definition: Sediment is an environmental substance comprised of any particulate matter that can be transported by fluid flow and which eventually is deposited as a layer of solid particles on the bedor bottom of a body of water or other liquid.
Definition: Component found in mineralized skeletal tissue, (a specialized form of biogenic tissue in which the extracellular matrix is mineralized, and which functions in mechanical and structural support.)
Definition: A structural quality inhering in a bearer by virtue of the bearer's being thicker or more closely packed together; pressed tightly together.
Definition: A group of species that exploit the same food resources, and/or use the same feeding or foraging methods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_(ecology)
Definition: position of an organism in a food web. May be described verbally with descriptors including primary producer, herbivore or carnivore. If described numerically, 1 indicates a primary producer, 2 a herbivore, and so on up the food web.
