“Food-web approaches to assess the functional benthic ecosystem interactions for Marine and Coastal management under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive” – D4Ss for short, is a research project that aims to investigate the bottom-up interaction effects of the different sediment trophic status, as the biochemistry and associated microbiome, on estuarine and benthic food webs.

The D4Ss research is being performed on the Southwest Coast of Portugal (Sado Estuary and adjacent Continental Shelf) allowing a joint integration of the coastal and marine assessment and management required by the MSFD and WFD.

The Food Web descriptor 4 (MSFD) is highlighted as the most difficult to implement. The extent to which sedimentary conditions shape trophic interactions of marine benthic assemblages is a gap of knowledge. It is hypothesized that the bottom-up differences in the sedimentary trophic status will shape the food web structure of benthic assemblages, in both estuarine and continental shelf environments. The benthic-mediated effects and the trophic position variation of macrobenthos and nematodes will be analysed using the ratios of stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen. The biogeochemical parameters and the microbioal communities will be analyzed to assess the sediment trophic conditions. This research is a driver to create highly specialized routines to monitor the D4 and its processes, contributing to attain scientific knowledge to these that define the state of marine environment.