Abstract

This study aims to design the aquatic environments (aquatic organisms that bring physical changes), which influence the organization and the operations of aquatic environments in a considerable way. Other processes, implying that the engineers are macroinvertebrates and macrophytes in mediating the processes of sediment and nutrient delivery in the diverse aquatic ecosystems (freshwater, estuarine, and marine), are also addressed in the study as an essential complex process. We generalize the literature on the path to developing a comprehensive scheme of how the engineers, e.g., bioturbators and reef-builders, modify the properties of sediments, e.g., grain size, presence of water, and redox conditions that lead to the regulation of the biogeochemical processes. Its main objective is to define the ecological effects of the different types of engineers in transporting the primary nutrients, especially nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), which are vital to the productivity of the water, but also cause eutrophication. These are our primary inputs: we have described a new conceptual model, which connects specific engineering processes (e.g., burrowing, filtering) with quantifiable variations in the stability of the sediment and changes in the stoichiometry of nutrient emission at the sediment-water interface. We give the context-dependency of these effects a scan in terms of what characteristics of the surrounding environment, such as flow regimes and the nature of the surrounding sediment, might mediate the impact of engineers. In addition to this, we highlight the fact that there must be an opportunity for the utilization of ecological services under such organisms in the future restoration of the aquatic ecosystem and a management plan to enhance the quality of water and environmental stability. This synthesis determines the invaluable importance of aquatic ecosystem engineers as a source of biogeochemical heterogeneity and process to the waters of the world, which gives future empirical investigations and conservation programs a solid foundation.

Keywords: Ecosystem engineer, Biogeochemical cycling, Sediment dynamics, bioturbation, Nutrient flux, Bio-stabilization, Context dependency