Effect of the invader Boccardia proboscidea (Polychaeta: Spionidae) on richness, diversity and structure of SW Atlantic epilithic intertidal community

Role of Reef-Building, Ecosystem Engineering Polychaetes in Shallow Water Ecosystems

“…Biodeposition: a portion of the material filtrated is rejected to the water as feces or pseudofeces Figures 1 and 2). RBP species are present in multiple marine systems worldwide, such as sandy beaches [36], coastal marinas [50], coastal lagoons [62], and estuaries [63] (Figure 1). Most RBP species inhabit soft bottoms [58,62,64], but they can also be found in intertidal [32,65] and subtidal hard bottoms [26].…”

“…There are also circumstances when three-dimensional biogenic structures decrease the diversity and abundance of macrofaunal species. Significant reductions in density, richness, and diversity of macrofaunal organisms were observed in sewage-impacted sites of Mar del Plata, Argentina, after the establishment of Boccardia proboscidea reefs [36]. In these case, the reefs replaced a relatively more rich, mussel-and algal-dominated community by occupying all the available space in intertidal consolidated sediment platforms ( [32,36]; Figure 2D).…”

“…Moreover, the reefs themselves act as sediment traps ameliorating physical conditions by sediment accumulation and stabilization [34]. Through these and other effects on the abiotic environment, RBP increase biotic diversity and abundance [26,35,36] and modify the distribution of infaunal and epifaunal organisms [37]. In addition to these community-level effects, RBP can affect ecosystem-level processes, mainly through their filter-feeding activities.…”

Succession in an intertidal benthic community affected by untreated sewage effluent: A case of study in the SW Atlantic shore

“…However, other response to nutrient enrichment could be, for example, a less dramatic change of the abundance and the species composition of the algal community (Orfanidis et al, 2001;Ballesteros et al, 2007;Arévalo et al, 2007;Pinedo et al, 2007;Dongyan et al, 2007;Pinedo et al, 2013). Moreover, the organic enrichment produced by sewage outfall may modify the faunal composition in near-shore benthic environments, predicting a peak in opportunists' organisms, mainly certain polychaetes species (Pearson and Rosenberg, 1978;Borja et al, 2006;Jaubet et al, 2011;Elías et al, 2015).…”

“…Previous to this modification, the area showed an increasing nutrient enrichment condition, turning into a sewage-polluted habitat (Vallarino et al, 2002;Elías et al, 2006;Elías et al, 2009;Jaubet et al, 2011;Sánchez et al, 2013). The benthic community near the sewage Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2016) xxx-xxx discharge area has being studied for over the past 15 years, chiefly assessing the effect of organic enrichment over the epilithic mussels bed-forming Brachidontes rodriguezii (family Mytilidae) (Vallarino et al, 2002;Elías et al, 2006;Sánchez et al, 2013) and the invasive polychaete Boccardia proboscidea (family Spionidae) (Jaubet et al, 2011;Garaffo et al, 2012;Jaubet et al, 2013;Elías et al, 2015). The macrobenthos community affected by the sewage outfall shows populations of B. rodriguezii in a lower density and with bigger individuals than those inhabiting non-impacted areas (Vallarino et al, 2014), and with eventually high density of the tube-building reef Boccardia proboscidea (Jaubet et al, 2011.…”