Climate extremes can drive biological assemblages to early successional stages compared to several mild disturbances

Extreme climatic events have a major role in the structuring of biological communities, and their occurrence is expected to increase due to climate change. Here I use a manipulative approach to test the effects of extreme storm events on rocky mid-shore assemblages. This study shows that an extreme storm can cause more negative effects than several mild storms, primarily by bringing the biological assemblages towards early stages of succession. This finding contrasts with the effects of clustering of climatic events due to climate change, which are expected to mitigate its ecological impacts. Thus, the ecological consequences of climatic events that are influenced by climate change may have contrasting effects depending on the features that are considered. These results have relevant implications in the forecasting of the ecological consequences of climate change and should be considered when designing measures to mitigate its effects.I have been financially supported by a postdoctoral grant from the Alfonso Martín Escudero Foundation and the University of Alicante (reference: GRE13-18), both from Spain

A manipulative field experiment to evaluate an integrative methodology for assessing sediment pollution in estuarine ecosystems

The assessment of sediment contamination is of crucial importance for the management of estuarine ecosystems. Environmental risk assessment of oil pollution must be specific to these ecosystems because of their unique toxicant bioavailability dynamics, which is not comparable with that of other ecosystems where the environmental parameters are less variable. The goal of this work was to test in two European estuarine areas (Ria de Aveiro, Portugal; La Manga, Spain) whether the common methodology used to evaluate sediment pollution in marine sediment (amphipod toxicity tests and community structure analysis) is suited to these physico-chemically unique systems. Manipulative field experiments were conducted at three oil concentration levels, to compare resulting changes in community structure with laboratory and in situ amphipod toxicity tests carried out with native amphipod species Corophium multisetosum (Atlantic area) and Microdeutopus gryllotalpa (Mediterranean area). The impact of the toxicant was reflected in the community structure and toxicity tests, both of which were correlated with oil concentration. These results point to this methodology being a reliable tool for assessing and monitoring pollution in estuarine areas.This work was financially supported by the project VEM2003-20068-C05-02 from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. C.S. is funded by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Pre-doctoral FPU scholarship)

Benthic recovery during open sea fish farming abatement in Western Mediterranean, Spain

Fish farming is an important source of organic matter input in coastal waters, which contributes to eutrophication. In this study, the macrofaunal benthic community was studied after the cessation of fish farming with the aim of improving our understanding of benthic succession and sediment recovery in a marine ecosystem. The results showed that the best environmental variables for assessing organic pollution were acid-volatile sulfides (AVS) and redox potential. Succession and recovery was best explained by macrofaunal analysis based on community composition as well as on trophic groups. The patterns of recovery differed between each impacted station. For this reason, succession could not be accurately predicted due to the unique environmental parameters and the singular community functional structure of each location. The Azti Marine Benthic Index (AMBI) proved its validity for assessing pollution but did not distinguish between successional stages.This work was financially supported by the Project AGL2004-08350-C02-01 from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and Culmarex S.A. Company. During the writing of the manuscript C.S. was granted a Pre-doctoral FPU scholarship from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia

Regional Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (RIMTA): Spatially separated, ecologically linked

Aquaculture sustainability is restricted by environmental drawbacks such as the pollution derived from the released organic waste. Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) aims to lower the input of this waste by culturing other species of low trophic level which feed on them. Despite the appealing idea of IMTA, its implementation is very limited in marine ecosystems. Focusing on marine fish farming, in general terms, fish farm waste is not expected to constitute a relevant food source for low-trophic level organisms cultured in the water column. We propose Regional Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (RIMTA) as a shift of paradigm in the way IMTA is used to sequester the dissolved exported waste and derived primary production generated by high trophic level cultures. RIMTA advocates for independent allocation of cultures of low and high trophic level species within the same water body. RIMTA implementation should be economically supported through tax benefits or nutrient quota trading schemes. Moving from IMTA to RIMTA should not only foster aquaculture sustainability but also the circular economy and the ecosystem services that the low trophic level cultures provide.C. S. was funded by the contract ‘Juan de la Cierva’ (ref. JCI-2012–12413) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and by the University of Alicante (Ref. UATALENTO 17–11). This work was funded by the project CGL 2015- 70136-R from the MINECO and the EU ERDF funding programme

Darwin's paradise contaminated by marine debris. Understanding their sources and accumulation dynamics

Plastic pollution is a global environmental threat. Remote and pristine islands are not safe from this threat. Here, we estimated beach macro- (>25 mm), meso- (5–25 mm) and microdebris (<5 mm) levels in Galapagos and studied the role of environmental variables determining their accumulation. The vast majority of beach macro- and mesodebris were plastic, while most microdebris were cellulosic. The levels of beach macro-, meso- and microplastics were notably high and comparable with exceptional levels reported in contaminated areas. Oceanic currents and the anthropic pressure of use of the beach were the main factors that determined the level of macro- and mesoplastics, as well as the diversity of items, with more types of items in the beaches facing the predominant current. Microplastic levels were mainly driven by the slope and, to some extent, the grain size of the sediment in the beach. The absence of relationship between the levels of large size debris and the level of microplastics suggests that secondary microplastics that accumulated in the beaches were previously fragmented before arriving to the beach. This differential influence of environmental factors in the accumulation of marine debris according to their size should be taken into account when developing strategies to mitigate plastic pollution. Additionally, this study reports high levels of marine debris reported in a remote and protected area such as Galapagos, which are comparable to areas with direct sources of marine debris. This is especially worrying for Galapagos since the sampled beaches are cleaned at least annually. This fact highlights the global dimension of this environmental threat that demands further extensive international commitment to conserve some of the last paradises on Earth.This study was funded by the University of Alicante (CUD-07/19)

Análisis espaciales georreferenciados de interpolación

Guión de rutinas para el programa Ocena Data View para realizar la interpolación de los datos espaciales georreferenciados tomados en el muestreo realizado previamente en la asignatura

A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events

Climate change is modifying disturbance regimes, affecting the severity and occurrence of extreme events. Current experiments investigating extreme events have a large diversity of experimental approaches and key aspects such as the interaction with other disturbances, the timing, and long-term effects are not usually incorporated in a standardized way. This lack of comparability among studies limits advances in this field of research. This study presents a framework that is comprised of two experimental approaches designed to test expected changes on disturbance regime due to climate change. These approaches test the effects of disturbances becoming more clustered and more extreme. They use common descriptor variables regardless of the type of disturbance and ecosystem. This framework is completed with a compilation of procedures that increase the realism of experiments in the aforementioned key aspects. The proposed framework favours comparability among studies and increases our understanding of extreme events. Examples to implement this framework are given using rocky shores as a case study. Far from being perfect, the purpose of this framework is to act as a starting point that triggers the comparability and refinement of these types of experiments needed to advance our understanding of the ecological effects of extreme events.Funded by the University of Alicante (Ref. UATALENTO 17-11)

Análisis de datos univariantes y multivariantes

Guión de rutinas para el programa R para realizar la representación gráfica y los análisis estadísticos de los datos obtenidos derivados del muestreo y posterior análisis la estimación de variables físico-químicas y biológicas realizados previamente en la asignatura

Graphical representation and statistical analysis of data

Script of routines for the statistical programme R to do the graphical representaion and statistical analyses fo the data related to the sampling in Maigmó and the following estimation of physico-chemical and biological variables previously done in the Ecology course

Effects of temperature and organic pollution on nutrient cycling in marine sediments

Increasing ocean temperature due to climate change is an important anthropogenic driver of ecological change in coastal systems. In these systems sediments play a major role in nutrient cycling. Our ability to predict ecological consequences of climate change is enhanced by simulating real scenarios. Based on predicted climate change scenarios, we tested the effect of temperature and organic pollution on nutrient release from coastal sediments to the water column in a mesocosm experiment. PO43− release rates from sediments followed the same trends as organic matter mineralization rates, increased linearly with temperature and were significantly higher under organic pollution than under nonpolluted conditions. NH4+ release only increased significantly when the temperature rise was above 6 °C, and it was significantly higher in organic polluted compared to nonpolluted sediments. Nutrient release to the water column was only a fraction from the mineralized organic matter, suggesting PO43− retention and NH4+ oxidation in the sediment. Bioturbation and bioirrigation appeared to be key processes responsible for this behavior. Considering that the primary production of most marine basins is N-limited, the excess release of NH4+ at a temperature rise > 6 °C could enhance water column primary productivity, which may lead to the deterioration of the environmental quality. Climate change effects are expected to be accelerated in areas affected by organic pollution.CS was supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain