Historical Trends of Benthic Invertebrate Biodiversity Spanning 182 Years in a Southern New England Estuary

Hale, Stephen S.; Hughes, Melissa M.; Buffum, Henry W.

doi:10.1007/s12237-018-0378-7

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…At the same time, there have been significant changes in community composition. Much of the year-to-year variance in community composition is driven by small, opportunistic, short life cycle species like Mediomastus, Nucula, and Ampelisca, while longer-term changes include larger fauna (Hale et al, 2018a). Variance of biodiversity in the bay was correlated with eutrophication, hypoxia, and sediment contamination by metals and synthetic organic compounds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the entire bay (USEPA dataset) and for the North Jamestown site, Δ* showed a rising trend toward the end of each time series. Although not statistically significant, these trends may be indicative of a recovery of biodiversity in response to decreased anthropogenic stressors, as suggested by an analysis of historical data collected over 182 years (Hale et al, 2018a). Whether these trends will continue and become significant will require further years of monitoring.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Six decades of change in pollution and benthic invertebrate biodiversity in a southern New England estuary

Hale

Buffum

Hughes

2018

Marine Pollution Bulletin

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Pollution has led to a decline of benthic invertebrate biodiversity of Narragansett Bay, raising questions about effects on ecosystem functions and services including shellfish production, energy flow to fishes, and biogeochemical cycles. Changes in community composition and taxonomic distinctness (biodiversity) were calculated from the 1950s-when quantitative benthic invertebrate data first became available-to 2015. Change in community composition of the bay was correlated with changes in dissolved inorganic nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, and sediment contaminants. A mid-bay reference site showed moderate changes in community composition but no change in biodiversity. In contrast, a more impacted site in the upper bay showed substantial differences in community composition over time and a decline in taxonomic distinctness. Bay-wide, as inputs of some stressors such as nutrients and sediment contaminants have declined, there are signs of recovery of benthic biodiversity but other stressors such as temperature and watershed development are increasing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Six decades of change in pollution and benthic invertebrate biodiversity in a southern New England estuary

Hale

Buffum

Hughes

2018

Marine Pollution Bulletin

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“…Within each habitat, infaunal data were analyzed with a combination of univariate and multivariate techniques to identify any potential changes in assemblage composition with exposure to different levels of anthropogenic disturbance. Lastly, given the multi-decadal nature of the dataset, the potential influence of changes in the baseline benthic community (e.g., Gillett et al, 2017;Hale et al, 2018) on habitat delineation and stressor response needed to be investigated. The persistence of different benthic assemblages and habitats across the time frame of the dataset was evaluated by comparing biotic and abiotic variables at reference condition sites from each decade of samples to each other.…”

Section: Analytical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing Community Structure of Benthic Infauna From the Continental Slope of the Southern California Bight

Gillett

Gilbane²,

Schiff

2021

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Infauna are an ecologically important component of marine benthic ecosystems and are the most common faunal assemblage used to assess habitat quality. Compared to the shallower waters of the continental shelf, less is known about the benthic fauna from the continental slope, especially how the communities are structured by natural gradients and anthropogenic stressors. The present study was conceived to rectify these data gaps and characterize the natural, baseline structure of the benthic infauna of the upper continental slope (200–100 m) of the Southern California Bight. We aggregated benthic infauna, sediment composition, and sediment chemistry data from different surveys across the Southern California Bight region (750 samples from 347 sites) collected between 1972 and 2016. We defined 208 samples to be in reference condition based upon sediment chemistry and proximity to known anthropogenic disturbances. Cluster analysis of the reference samples was used to identify distinct assemblages and the abiotic characteristics associated with each cluster were then used to define habitat characteristics for each assemblage. Three habitats were identified, delineated by geography, depth, and sediment composition. Across the habitats, there were detectable changes in community composition of the non-disturbed fauna through time. However, the uniqueness of the habitats was persistent, as the fauna from each habitat remained taxonomically distinct from irrespective of the decade of their collection. Within each habitat, subtle, assemblage-scale responses to disturbance could be detected, but no consistent patterns could be identified among the component taxa. As with the non-disturbed samples, there were compositional changes in the fauna of the disturbed samples through time. Despite the changes, fauna from disturbed and non-disturbed samples remained taxonomically distinct from each other within each decade of the dataset. After considering both the spatial and temporal patterns in the fauna of slope ecosystem, it became apparent that there was a high degree of stochasticity in the taxonomic organization of all three habitats. This would suggest that the benthic fauna from these communities may be neutrally organized, which in turn poses interesting challenges for future development of condition assessment tools based upon the benthic fauna in these habitats.

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“…These challenges have been countered by using alternative data sources such as paleontological, archeological, and historical records (Carlton 1998 An additional source of insight into long-term ecological change is repetition of comprehensive studies conducted at a particular site over time spans of decades to centuries (Gatti et al 2015;Hale et al 2018). Here, we report the results from the longitudinal resampling of an observational study initiated 89 years ago at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station (HMS), Pacific Grove, California.…”

Section: Field Stations As Sentinels Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Field stations as sentinels of change

Micheli

Carlton

Pearse

et al. 2020

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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Historical Trends of Benthic Invertebrate Biodiversity Spanning 182 Years in a Southern New England Estuary

Cited by 13 publications

References 67 publications

Six decades of change in pollution and benthic invertebrate biodiversity in a southern New England estuary

Six decades of change in pollution and benthic invertebrate biodiversity in a southern New England estuary

Characterizing Community Structure of Benthic Infauna From the Continental Slope of the Southern California Bight

Field stations as sentinels of change

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