19 research outputs found
Compounded perturbations in coastal areas: contrasting responses to nutrient enrichment and the regime of storm-related disturbance depend on life-history traits
1. Natural systems are exposed to compounded perturbations, whose changes in temporal
variance can be as important as those in mean intensity for shaping the structure of assemblages.
Specifically, climate-related physical disturbances and nutrient inputs due to natural
and/or anthropogenic activities occur concomitantly, but experimental tests of the simultaneous
effects of changes in the regime of more than one perturbation are generally lacking.
Filling this gap is the key to understand ecological responses of natural assemblages to
climate-related change in the intensity and temporal patterning of physical disturbance combined
with other global stressors.
2. Responses to factorial manipulations of nutrient enrichment, mean intensity and temporal
variability in storm-like mechanical disturbance were examined, using benthic assemblages of
tide-pools as model system.
3. Response variables were mean abundance values and temporal variances of taxa with different
life-traits. Consistent negative effects of disturbance intensity were observed for the mean
cover of long-living taxa (algal canopies and the polychaete Sabellaria alveolata), whose temporal
fluctuations were also reduced by more severe mechanical stress. More resilient taxa
(ephemeral algae, mostly green of the genus Ulva) increased under enriched conditions, particularly
when low-intensity events were irregularly applied over time. Opposite effects of disturbance
intensity depending on nutrient availability occurred on filamentous algae (e.g. red of
the genus Ceramium). This was probably due to the fact that, although nutrient enrichment
stimulated the abundance of both algal groups, when this condition was combined with relatively
mild physical disturbance the competitively superior ephemeral green algae tended to
become dominant over filamentous red algae. The same did not occur under high intensity of
disturbance since it likely damaged large, foliose fronds of Ulva-like forms more than small, filamentous
fronds of Ceramium-like forms. Grazers were positively affected by nutrients, likely
responding indirectly to more food available.
4. A direct relationship between the mean abundance of most organisms and their temporal
fluctuations was documented. However, all organisms persisted throughout the study, even
under experimental conditions associated to the largest temporal variation in their abundance,
likely due to their ability to resist to/quickly recover from, the applied perturbations. Therefore,
in systems with great recovery abilities of dominant organisms (e.g. rocky intertidal,
grasslands), effects of traits of the regime of disturbance and nutrient enrichment may modulate the fluctuations of populations not through the elimination and substitution of species,
but through changes in relative abundances of the same species. This contrasts with the
theory that temporal variation in abundance would be directly related to the risk of local
extinction. Present findings enable more accurate predictions of the consequences of climatic
and non-climatic scenarios on the biodiversity of marine and terrestrial systems sharing analogous
functional traits of organisms. Future more intense physical disturbances are expected to
exert negative effects on slow-growing/recovering species (e.g. habitat-formers) irrespectively of
the temporal patterning of the same disturbances and nutrient inputs. On the contrary, more
resistant species (e.g. encrusting algae on rocky shores or below-ground vegetation in grasslands)
are expected to benefit from intense physical disturbance. Species whose abundance is
more directly related to the availability of nutrients (e.g. filamentous and ephemeral algae or
herbs) are expected to generally increase under enriched conditions, but their ability to eventually
become dominant would depend on their ability to grow fast and attain cover large
enough to overwhelm any possible control of concomitant disturbance intensity on their abundance.
If, such as in the present examined system, virtually all organisms can persist, over the
temporal scale of the experiment, under any combination of physical disturbance and nutrient
availability, the resulting overall diversity is not predicted to change drastically. Nevertheless,
low-intensity events evenly distributed and high-intensity events irregularly distributed appear
as the conditions supporting the highest richness of taxa, independently of the availability of
nutrients
The underwater observation of fish communities and fish populations. Methods and problems
Following the symposium held in June 1984 at Port Cros, the methods of underwater observation of fish communities and populations are critically reviewed. Particular emphasis is laid upon the possible causes of bias, and the ways of circumventing them. Given some necessary precautions and adequate training, and within definite limits, underwater observations and counts can produce highly reliable results, not obtainable by « blind » techniques. Some examples are given, based upon the personal experiences of the participants, both in the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacifi