| The microalgal biofilm, which is present on sediment surface, is the primary production unit on bare intertidal mudlfats. In order to improve our understanding of this primary production system, a study was undertaken at microscale to analyse the structural and functional properties of this biofilm. In the first part of this work, a detailed descriptive analysis lead to the characterisation of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the physical structure of the biofilm. It turns out that the biofilm exhibits its own dynamics at the sediment surface (as a discrete compartment in the top 200 µm), but still has a functional relationship with the total available biomass (PCB) distributed within the top 1 cm (linear relationship between the maximum size of the biofilm... |
