Comparison between death and living molluscs assemblages in a Mediterranean infralittoral off-shore reef

Albano, Paolo G.; Sabelli, Bruno

doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.07.012

Cited by 44 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Generally, little transport is likely to occur between vegetated and adjacent unvegetated areas because of the trapping effect of the plants (Scoffin 1970;Miller 1988;Albano and Sabelli 2011), but this study shows that gastropod death assemblages from the unvegetated zone of seagrass meadows differ from those collected at entirely unvegetated sandflats, while they do not significantly differ from assemblages collected on the margin of the vegetated zone. This may indicate that transported shells from within seagrass meadows are influencing death assemblages from the adjacent unvegetated zone.…”

Section: Time Taphonomy and Transportcontrasting

confidence: 61%

Gastropod Associations as a Proxy for Seagrass Vegetation in a Tropical, Carbonate Setting (San Salvador, Bahamas)

Reich

2014

PALAIOS

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Seagrass meadows are productive marine ecosystems that stabilize sediments and provide food and shelter for a diverse associated community. The recognition of these important habitats in the geological record is problematic, because marine angiosperms rarely fossilize. Thus, the presence of paleo-seagrass vegetation often has to be inferred from the occurrence of associated organisms with a higher potential for fossilization, such as mollusks. Because most mollusk taxa are not restricted to seagrass meadows, the species composition and feeding ecology of fossil mollusk faunas need to be considered when distinguishing paleo-seagrass meadows from other marine habitats. In this study the utility of faunal composition and feeding ecology of gastropods as an indicator of seagrass vegetation was tested using present-day ecosystems. Bulk-sediment samples containing gastropod death assemblages from shallow-water seagrass meadows and unvegetated sandflats from San Salvador Island, Bahamas were collected in July 2012. Vegetation varied across localities in terms of density and number of seagrass species. Twenty-four standardized (n = 200) samples of gastropods were compared in terms of species composition and relative abundance of feeding guilds. Multivariate analyses indicate that species composition is an effective tool for distinguishing between gastropod assemblages from vegetated versus unvegetated areas. To a lesser extent, species composition differs among vegetation zones on sandflats with seagrass cover. Feeding guild composition based on species richness also differs on seagrass-vegetated and unvegetated sandflats. The results suggest that gastropod assemblages are a useful proxy for seagrass meadows in the fossil record.

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Section: Time Taphonomy and Transportcontrasting

confidence: 61%

Gastropod Associations as a Proxy for Seagrass Vegetation in a Tropical, Carbonate Setting (San Salvador, Bahamas)

Reich

2014

PALAIOS

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“…up to 20% larger than the largest size ever measured in a living specimen (see Leonardi et al 1996). This may be explained by time-averaging of naturally variable populations, a phenomenon by which death assemblages accumulate and preserve specimens over several seasons and years, thus lengthening the window of observation on local composition (Fürsich & Aberhan 1990;Albano & Sabelli 2011). In this case, the presence of larger individuals in the sediment than in the living population indicates that the maximum size attained by this species at a given site may exhibit considerable variation over relatively short temporal scales.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The clam Neilonella sulculata in San Jorge Gulf (Argentina, Southwest Atlantic): spatial distribution pattern and inverse relationship between size and density

Liuzzi

López-Gappa

Olivieri

2016

Marine Biology Research

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Neilonella sulculata is a dominant bivalve on muddy bottoms of the continental shelf and gulfs off Argentina (Southwest Atlantic). Two benthic surveys performed in 2007 and 2009 in San Jorge Gulf, a depositional area characterized by silt/clay sediments, gave us the opportunity to test whether the population of this clam displays a significant spatial structure and to analyse if there is an inverse relationship between size and density. Density, biomass and size-frequency distribution displayed significant spatial structure, being positively autocorrelated at the smallest spatial scales (c. 1.7-14/17 km). Biomass also showed spatial contagion at scales of 25-33 km. A substantial increase in density and biomass occurred between 2007 and 2009. Empty valves in the sediment showed that the maximum size attained by the species may exhibit considerable variation at relatively short temporal scales. Regardless of temporal changes in density and biomass, the spatial structure of these variables remained stable. In densely populated areas, shell size decreased with increasing density, suggesting a density-dependent control of growth. A clear north-south increase in density and biomass was detected, which might be related to a gradient in food availability caused by a thermohaline frontal system associated with wind-related upwelling. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…This species is present in DAs but absent in living communities, most likely due to the low detectability caused by its cryptic life habit. A similar factor also affects the low detectability of cryptic species in LAs in hard-bottom habitats in coral reefs reported by Zuschin et al (2000) and in offshore reefs dominated by coralline algae and Posidonia oceanica reported by Albano and Sabelli (2011). Also, DAs were not sieved and this fact could have added an artificial bias against small specimens, even when sampling design was developed to reduce the drawback.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous contributions have found that there is fairly good agreement between the species composition of living assemblages (LAs) and the co-occurring death assemblages (DAs) in marine environments (e.g., Fü rsich and Flessa 1987; Kidwell 2001Kidwell , 2002Kidwell , 2013; see examples in Kidwell and Bosence 1991) as well as in other settings and/or taxa, such as land snails (Yanes et al 2008;Yanes 2011), fresh water mollusks (De Francesco et al 2013;Erthal et al 2011;Tietze and De Francesco 2012), marine mammals (Liebig et al 2003), ungulate mammals (Miller 2011(Miller , 2012, nonvolant terrestrial mammals , and small mammals (Terry 2010; see other examples in Kidwell and Tomašových 2013). However, the degree of similarity between living communities and the corresponding dead remains shows a large variation (Kidwell 2001), particularly among marine benthic communities (Kidwell and Bosence 1991;Zuschin et al 2000;Zuschin and Oliver 2003;Albano and Sabelli 2011;Feser and Miller 2014). The dissimilarities between LAs and DAs in marine soft-bottom environments can be largely explained by the effect of time averaging and probably less by taphonomic biases (Tomašových and Kidwell 2009Kidwell , 2010Kidwell , 2011Kidwell and Tomašových 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional-Scale Compositional and Size Fidelity of Rocky Intertidal Communities From the Patagonian Atlantic Coast

Archuby¹,

Adami²,

Martinelli³

et al. 2015

PALAIOS

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The use of rocky intertidal assemblages in paleoecology and conservation paleobiology studies is limited because these environments have low preservation potential. Here, we evaluate the fidelity between living intertidal mussel bed communities (life assemblages or LAs) and mollusk shell accumulations (death assemblages or DAs) from the environmentally harsh Patagonian Atlantic Coast. LAs were sampled from rocky mid-intertidal and mussel-dominated habitats while DAs were collected from the high water mark at beaches in close proximity to the living intertidal community to assess live-dead mismatch at regional scales. DAs were restricted to the subset of species in the DAs that inhabit rocky intertidal habitats. A total of 37,193 mollusk specimens from 15 intertidal species were included in the analysis. Ten species were present in LAs, 14 in DAs, and nine were shared by LAs and DAs. DAs showed higher diversity, less dominance, and more rare species than LAs. Despite finding good agreement in species composition between DAs and LAs within the same region, smaller species are underrepresented, as shown by differences in size-frequency distributions. Our findings indicate that the composition of DAs is a result of the combined effects of spatial and temporal averaging, size-related biases, and biases related to low detectability of boring and vagile species in LAs. Thus, DAs do not accurately detect within-provincial latitudinal gradients in composition. However, DAs clearly capture differences between the Argentine-Magellanic Transition Zone and the Magellanic Province, indicating that DAs are informative tools at regional scales despite the environmental harshness to which they are subjected.

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Comparison between death and living molluscs assemblages in a Mediterranean infralittoral off-shore reef

Cited by 44 publications

References 24 publications

Gastropod Associations as a Proxy for Seagrass Vegetation in a Tropical, Carbonate Setting (San Salvador, Bahamas)

Gastropod Associations as a Proxy for Seagrass Vegetation in a Tropical, Carbonate Setting (San Salvador, Bahamas)

The clam Neilonella sulculata in San Jorge Gulf (Argentina, Southwest Atlantic): spatial distribution pattern and inverse relationship between size and density

Regional-Scale Compositional and Size Fidelity of Rocky Intertidal Communities From the Patagonian Atlantic Coast

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