Marine diversity shift linked to interactions among grazers, nutrients and propagule banks

• Diverse coastal seaweed communities dominated by perennial fucoids become replaced by species-poor turfs of annual algae throughout the Baltic Sea. A large scale field survey and factorial field experiments indicated that grazers maintain the fucoid cornmunity through selective consumption of annual algae. Interactive effects between grazers and dormant propagules of annual algae. stored in a 'marine seed bank', determine the response of this system to anthropogenic nutrient loading. Nutrients override grazer control and accelerate the loss of algal diversity in the presence but not in the absence of a propagule bank. This irnplies a novel role of propagule banks for community regulation and ecosystem response to manne eutrophication.  

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Ekologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Ecology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Coastal ecosystems

Eutrophication

Baltic Sea

Macroalgae

Diversity

Community structure

Darmancy

Herbivory

Fucus vesiculosus

Marine ecology

Marin ekologi

Akvatisk ekologi

Aquatic Ecology

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)