| 1. |
- Gladstone-Gallagher, Rebecca V., et al.
(författare)
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Identifying “vital attributes” for assessing disturbance–recovery potential of seafloor communities
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 11:11, s. 6091-6103
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite a long history of disturbance-recovery research, we still lack a generalizable understanding of the attributes that drive community recovery potential in seafloor ecosystems. Marine soft-sediment ecosystems encompass a range of heterogeneity from simple low-diversity habitats with limited biogenic structure, to species-rich systems with complex biogenic habitat structure. These differences in biological heterogeneity are a product of natural conditions and disturbance regimes. To search for unifying attributes, we explore whether a set of simple traits can characterize community disturbance-recovery potential using seafloor patch-disturbance experiments conducted in two different soft-sediment landscapes. The two landscapes represent two ends of a spectrum of landscape biotic heterogeneity in order to consider multi-scale disturbance-recovery processes. We consider traits at different levels of biological organization, from the biological traits of individual species, to the traits of species at the landscape scale associated with their occurrence across the landscape and their ability to be dominant. We show that in a biotically heterogeneous landscape (Kawau Bay, New Zealand), seafloor community recovery is stochastic, there is high species turnover, and the landscape-scale traits are good predictors of recovery. In contrast, in a biotically homogeneous landscape (Baltic Sea), the options for recovery are constrained, the recovery pathway is thus more deterministic and the scale of recovery traits important for determining recovery switches to the individual species biological traits within the disturbed patch. Our results imply that these simple, yet sophisticated, traits can be effectively used to characterize community recovery potential and highlight the role of landscapes in providing resilience to patch-scale disturbances.
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| 2. |
- Meysick, Lukas, et al.
(författare)
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Context-dependent community facilitation in seagrass meadows along a hydrodynamic stress gradient
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Sea Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 1385-1101 .- 1873-1414. ; 150, s. 8-23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Foundation species host diverse associated communities by ameliorating environmental stress. The strength of this facilitative effect can be highly dependent on the underlying biotic and abiotic context. We investigated community level patterns of macrofauna associated with and adjacent to the marine foundation species eelgrass (Zostera marina) along a hydrodynamic stress gradient. We could demonstrate that the relative importance of this foundation species for its infaunal community increases with environmental variables associated with increasing hydrodynamic stress (depth, sand ripples formation, sediment grain size and organic content). Faunal assemblages in proximity to the Zostera patch edges, however, showed no (infauna) or negative (epifauna) response to hydrodynamic stress. Our study highlights that the facilitative outcome of a foundation species is conditional to the faunal assemblage in question and can be highly variable even between positions within the habitat.
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| 3. |
- Uusitalo, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Exploring methods for predicting multiple pressures on ecosystem recovery : A case study on marine eutrophication and fisheries
- 2016
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Ingår i: Continental Shelf Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0278-4343 .- 1873-6955. ; 121, s. 48-60
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Efforts to attain good environmental status in the marine realm require decisions which cannot be done without knowledge of effects of different management measures. Given the wide diversity of marine ecosystems, multitude of pressures affecting it and the still poor understanding on linkages between those, there are likely no models available to give all the required answers. Hence, several separate approaches can be used in parallel to give support for management measures. We tested three completely different methods - a spatial impact index, a food web model and a Bayesian expert method. We found that a large uncertainty existed regarding the ecosystem response to the management scenarios, and that the three different modelling approaches complemented each other. The models indicated that in order to reach an improved overall state of the ecosystem nutrient reductions are the more effective of the two management variables explored, and that cumulative effects of the management of nutrient inputs and fishing mortality are likely to exist.
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