Chlorophyll-a and the Supply Side Ecology: Lessons from the Rocky Shores

The aims of this study were to summarize and describe the influences of phytoplankton on the larval cycle of rocky shore invertebrates, and to assess the relationship between fluctuations in chlorophyll-a concentration and the rates of larval processes. We carried out a mini review of the published data regarding the theme of the chapter, in which we described the ecological trends for the most common taxa and key species at small and larger spatiotemporal scales. The following topics were addressed: (i) the influence of phytoplankton on larval development, rhythms of larval release, larval quality, larval transport, settlement, and recruitment; (ii) the relationships between variations in chlorophyll-a concentration and the rates of larval processes; (iii) climate change on phytoplankton larva dynamics. The information presented here highlights the role of phytoplankton on rocky shore communities, as well as the importance of chlorophyll-a as a tool for modeling and forecasting the supply side ecology in rocky shore communities

Temporal variation in intertidal community recruitment and its relationships to physical orcings, chlorophyll‑a concentration and sea surface temperature

We investigated the recruitment of intertidal barnacles\ud and mussels at three temporal scales (months, weeks and\ud days), and its relationships to physical forcings, chlorophylla\ud concentration (Chla) and sea surface temperature (SST), at\ud both a local (km) and a regional (10–100 km) resolution. The\ud study was conducted in the South Brazilian Bight, a subtropical\ud region influenced by upwelling and meteorological fronts,\ud where recruitment rates were measured monthly, biweekly\ud and daily, from 2012 to 2013 using artificial substrates fixed\ud in the intertidal zone. The strength of the relationship between\ud recruitment and physical forcings, Chla and SST depended on\ud the temporal scale, with different trends observed for barnacles\ud and mussels. Barnacle recruitment was positively correlated\ud with wind speed and SST and negatively related to the\ud wind direction, cold front events and Chla. Wind direction was positively correlated with mussel recruitment and negatively\ud covaried with SST. We calculated net recruitment (NR)\ud to estimate the differences in recruitment rates observed at\ud longer time scales (months and weeks), with recruitment rates\ud observed at shorter time scales (weeks and days), and found\ud that NR varied in time and among taxa. These results suggest\ud that wind-driven oceanographic processes might affect\ud onshore abundance of barnacle larvae, causing the observed\ud variation in recruitment. This study highlights the importance\ud of oceanic–climatic variables as predictors of intertidal invertebrate\ud recruitment and shows that climatic fluctuations might\ud have different effects on rocky shore communities.CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior)FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo)Fundo Clima/MMA (Fundo Nacional sobre Mudança do Clima/Ministério do Meio Ambiente

Variação nas taxas de recrutamento de invertebrados do entremarés de costas rochosas em resposta a alterações nas forçantes físicas, concentração de clorofila-a e temperatura: o efeito das frentes frias

Marine communities are affected by oceanographic processes, which influence ecological interactions, such as recruitment rates, that are essential regulators of community dynamics. These relationships are not constant; they change in space and time or among taxa. We defend the thesis that oceanographic processes of climatic origin influencing larval abundance at the study region, regulate and establish the trends in settlement and recruitment of invertebrates (cirripeds and bivalves) at rocky shore intertidal. We first investigated the recruitment at different temporal scales and its relationships with physical forcings, chlorophyll-a concentration and sea surface temperature. Second, we focused on the spatial synchrony and contrasts of recruitment, and interspecific trends. Third, we described and evaluated the co-variation between cold fronts and the larval abundance and settlement. We concluded that there is a high degree of correlation between recruitment/settlement and the variation of the wind field, which set temporal trends. Cold fronts are important regulators of settlement, but higher recruitment was associated to NE-E winds. Barnacle recruitment is more susceptible to the environmental variations compared to bivalves. Regional recruitment is not spatially synchronic with differences in the scale of 100 km. This study highlights the importance of oceanic-climatic phenomena as predictors of spatio-temporal trends of recruitment showing that climatic fluctuations might have contrasting effects on rocky shore communities.As comunidades marinhas são afetadas por processos oceanográficos que influenciam as interações ecológicas, como as taxas de recrutamento, reguladores essenciais da dinâmica dessas comunidades. Essas relações não são constantes, elas mudam no espaço e no tempo, ou entre taxa. Aqui nós defendemos a tese que processos oceanográficos de origem climática, por influenciarem a abundância larval região de estudo, regulam e estabelecem tendências do assentamento e recrutamento de invertebrados (cirripedes e bivalves) do entremarés de costas rochosas. Primeiramente, nós investigamos o recrutamento em diferentes escalas de tempo e sua relação com forçantes físicas, concentração de clorofila-a e temperatura da superfície do mar. Em um segundo momento, nós focamos na sincronia e nos contrastes espaciais do recrutamento, e as tendências inter-específicas. Por fim, descrevemos e avaliamos a co-variância entre frentes frias, abundância larval e assentamento. Concluímos que há um alto grau de correlação entre recrutamento/ assentamento e a variação do campo de ventos, o qual estabelece as tendências temporais. As frentes frias são reguladores importantes do assentamento, mas o recrutamento mais alto está associado a ventos de NE-E. O recrutamento de cirripedes é mais susceptível às variações ambientais se comparado aos bivalves. O recrutamento regional não é sincrônico no espaço, com diferenças na escala de 100km. Este estudo destaca a importância dos fenômenos oceano-climáticos na previsão de tendências espaço-temporais do recrutamento, mostrando que flutuações climáticas podem ter efeitos contrastantes nas comunidades de costas rochosas

Optimizing Large-Scale Biodiversity Sampling Effort: Toward an Unbalanced Survey Design: Toward an Unbalanced Survey Design

Acquiring marine biodiversity data is difficult, costly, and time consuming, making it challenging to understand the distribution and abundance of lifei n the ocean. Historically, approaches to biodiversity sampling over large geographic scales have advocated for equivalent effort across multiple sites to minimize comparative bias. When effort cannot be equalized, techniques such as rarefaction have been applied to minimize biases by reverting diversity estimates to equivalent numbers of samples or individuals. This often results in oversampling and wasted resources or inaccurately characterized communities due to undersampling. How, then, can we better determine an optimal survey design for characterizing species richness and community composition across a range of conditions and capacities without compromising taxonomic resolution and statistical power? Researchers in the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Pole to Pole of the Americas (MBON Pole to Pole) are surveying rocky shore macroinvertebrates and algal communities spanning ~107° of latitude and 10 biogeographic ecoregions to address this question. Here, we apply existing techniques in the form of fixed-coverage subsampling and a complementary multivariate analysis to determine the optimal effort necessary for characterizing species richness and community composition across the network sampling sites. We show that oversampling for species richness varied between ~20% and 400% at over half of studied areas, while some locations were under sampled by up to 50%. Multivariate error analysis also revealed that most of the localities were oversampled by several-fold for benthic community composition. From this analysis, we advocate for an unbalanced sampling approach to support field programs in the collection of high-quality data, where preliminary information is used to set the minimum required effort to generate robust values of diversity and composition on a site-to-site basis. As part of this recommendation, we provide statistical tools in the open-source R statistical software to aid researchers inimplementing optimization strategies and expanding the geographic footprint or sampling frequency of regional biodiversity survey programs.Fil: Montes, Enrique. NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Lefcheck, Jonathan. Charles Darwin Foundation Santa Cruz; EcuadorFil: Bigatti, Gregorio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Instituto de Biología de Organismos Marinos; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia "San Juan Bosco"; Argentina. Universidad Espíritu Santo; EcuadorFil: Guerra-Castro, Edlin. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Klein, Eduardo. Universidad Simón Bolívar; VenezuelaFil: Kavanaugh, Maria T.. Oregon State University; Estados UnidosFil: de Azevedo Mazzuco, Ana Carolina. Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo; BrasilFil: Cordeiro, Cesar A.M.M.. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Simoes, Nuno. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; México. Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; Estados UnidosFil: Macaya, Erasmo C.. Universidad de Concepción; ChileFil: Moity, Nicolas. Charles Darwin Foundation; EcuadorFil: Londoño-Cruz, Edgardo. Universidad del Valle; ColombiaFil: Helmuth, Brian. Northeastern University; Estados UnidosFil: Choi, Francis. Northeastern University; Estados UnidosFil: Soto, Eulogio H.. Universidad de Valparaíso; ChileFil: Miloslavich, Patricia. University of Delaware; Estados UnidosFil: Muller-Karger, Frank E.. University of South Florida; Estados Unido

Accelerating ocean species discovery and laying the foundations for the future of marine biodiversity research and monitoring

Ocean Census is a new Large-Scale Strategic Science Mission aimed at accelerating the discovery and description of marine species. This mission addresses the knowledge gap of the diversity and distribution of marine life whereby of an estimated 1 million to 2 million species of marine life between 75% to 90% remain undescribed to date. Without improved knowledge of marine biodiversity, tackling the decline and eventual extinction of many marine species will not be possible. The marine biota has evolved over 4 billion years and includes many branches of the tree of life that do not exist on land or in freshwater. Understanding what is in the ocean and where it lives is fundamental science, which is required to understand how the ocean works, the direct and indirect benefits it provides to society and how human impacts can be reduced and managed to ensure marine ecosystems remain healthy. We describe a strategy to accelerate the rate of ocean species discovery by: 1) employing consistent standards for digitisation of species data to broaden access to biodiversity knowledge and enabling cybertaxonomy; 2) establishing new working practices and adopting advanced technologies to accelerate taxonomy; 3) building the capacity of stakeholders to undertake taxonomic and biodiversity research and capacity development, especially targeted at low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) so they can better assess and manage life in their waters and contribute to global biodiversity knowledge; and 4) increasing observational coverage on dedicated expeditions. Ocean Census, is conceived as a global open network of scientists anchored by Biodiversity Centres in developed countries and LMICs. Through a collaborative approach, including co-production of science with LMICs, and by working with funding partners, Ocean Census will focus and grow current efforts to discover ocean life globally, and permanently transform our ability to document, describe and safeguard marine species

Accelerating ocean species discovery and laying the foundations for the future of marine biodiversity research and monitoring

Ocean Census is a new Large-Scale Strategic Science Mission aimed at accelerating the discovery and description of marine species. This mission addresses the knowledge gap of the diversity and distribution of marine life whereby of an estimated 1 million to 2 million species of marine life between 75% to 90% remain undescribed to date. Without improved knowledge of marine biodiversity, tackling the decline and eventual extinction of many marine species will not be possible. The marine biota has evolved over 4 billion years and includes many branches of the tree of life that do not exist on land or in freshwater. Understanding what is in the ocean and where it lives is fundamental science, which is required to understand how the ocean works, the direct and indirect benefits it provides to society and how human impacts can be reduced and managed to ensure marine ecosystems remain healthy. We describe a strategy to accelerate the rate of ocean species discovery by: 1) employing consistent standards for digitisation of species data to broaden access to biodiversity knowledge and enabling cybertaxonomy; 2) establishing new working practices and adopting advanced technologies to accelerate taxonomy; 3) building the capacity of stakeholders to undertake taxonomic and biodiversity research and capacity development, especially targeted at low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) so they can better assess and manage life in their waters and contribute to global biodiversity knowledge; and 4) increasing observational coverage on dedicated expeditions. Ocean Census, is conceived as a global open network of scientists anchored by Biodiversity Centres in developed countries and LMICs. Through a collaborative approach, including co-production of science with LMICs, and by working with funding partners, Ocean Census will focus and grow current efforts to discover ocean life globally, and permanently transform our ability to document, describe and safeguard marine species