Intertidal habitat composition and regional-scale shoreline morphology along the Benguela coast

Harris, Linda R.; Holness, Stephen; Lombard, Amanda T.; Schoeman, David S.

doi:10.1007/s11852-012-0226-z

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Another factor with a secondary but significant relation with habitat distribution in this study is geology, i.e. rock mineral content (Harris et al, 2013). Algae are unable to absorb nutrients or any other chemical component directly from the rocky substrate.…”

Section: A C C E P T E D Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 84%

Life on the boundary: Environmental factors as drivers of habitat distribution in the littoral zone

Cefalì

Cebrián

Chappuis

et al. 2016

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

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The boundary between land and sea, i.e. the littoral zone, is home to a large number of habitats whose distribution is primarily driven by the distance to the sea level but also by other environmental factors such as littoral's geomorphological features, wave exposure, water temperature or orientation. Here we explore the relative importance of those major environmental factors that drive the presence of littoral rocky habitats along 1100 km of Catalonia's shoreline (Spain, NW Mediterranean) by using Geographic Information Systems and Generalized Linear Models. The distribution of mediolittoral and upper infralittoral habitats responded to different environmental factors. Mediolittoral habitats showed regional differences drawn by sea-water temperature and substrate type. Wave exposure (hydrodynamism), slope and geological features were only relevant to those mediolittoral habitats with specific environmental needs. We did not find any regional pattern of distribution in upper infralittoral habitats, and selected factors only played a moderate role in habitat distribution at the local scale. This study shows for the first time that environmental M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT2 factors determining habitat distribution differ within the mediolittoral and the upper infralittoral zones and provides the basis for further development of models oriented at predicting the distribution of littoral marine habitats.

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Section: A C C E P T E D Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 84%

Life on the boundary: Environmental factors as drivers of habitat distribution in the littoral zone

Cefalì

Cebrián

Chappuis

et al. 2016

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

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“…This expansion into Angola, thus, increased its range to 1005 km of shore from Moçâmedes to Walvis Bay (Table 1; Fig 1). This pattern of range expansion is a better reflection of the species' spread in the region in the late 1960s, which is notable for (1) the rapid rate of spread and (2) the breaching of the biogeographic boundary from the Namib to the Angolan ecoregions [41][42][43]. Additionally, some intertidal sites were known to have been extensively surveyed in the late 1960s yet, conspicuously, no reports of S. algosus were documented from these sites [9,10,12], suggesting that its distribution was patchy across its range and that it was absent from the southern coast of Namibia (Fig 1).…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Historical and contemporary range expansion of an invasive mussel, Semimytlius algosus, in Angola and Namibia despite data scarcity in an infrequently surveyed region

et al. 2020

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Understanding the spread of invasive species in many regions is difficult because surveys are rare. Here, historical records of the invasive marine mussel, Semimytilus algosus, on the shores of Angola and Namibia are synthesised to reconstruct its invasive history. Since this mussel was first discovered in Namibia about 90 years ago, it has spread throughout the western coast of southern Africa. By the late 1960s, the species was well established across a range of 1005 km of coastline in southern Angola and northern Namibia. Although only coarse spatial resolution data are available since the 1990s, the distribution of S. algosus clearly increased substantially over the subsequent decades. Today, the species is distributed over 2785 km of coastline, appearing in southern Namibia in 2014, whence it spread across the border to northern South Africa in 2017, and in northern Angola in 2015. Conspicuously, its current range appears to be relatively contiguous across at least 810 km of shore in southern Angola and throughout Namibia, with isolated, spatially disjunct occurrences towards the southern and northern limits of its distribution. Despite there being few occurrence records that are unevenly distributed spatially and temporally, data for the distributional patterns of S. algosus in Angola and Namibia provide invaluable insights into how marine invasive species spread in developing regions that are infrequently monitored.

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Section: Physical and Oceanographic Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The coastline of Angola, which is approximately 1650 km long, consists of sandy and rocky stretches of coastline, punctuated by numerous coastal features such as estuaries, mangroves, coastal lakes, wetlands and tidal flats (Harris et al 2013). Between Rio Bero (north of Moçâmedes) in Namibe Province and to the north of Rio Coporolo in Benguela Province are rocky shores; the rest of the coastline is predominantly sandy although there are some scattered rocky shores further north of Lobito (Harris et al 2013). The continental shelf, which extends to about 200 m depth, is relatively narrow especially near the south where it is as little as 6 km wide and very steep in parts of Namibe and Benguela, but it widens further north to 33 km width near the mouth of the Congo River, and in the south it widens a little between Tômbwa and Cunene (Figure 1, Bianchi 1992).…”

Section: Physical and Oceanographic Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ecoregions extend from the coast to the shelf edge. Also shown are recognised marine and coastal biodiversity areas and the approximate situations of important oceanographic processes lagoons, salt marshes and (north of Lobito) mangroves support a rich suite of species, often in high abundance (Hughes and Hughes 1992;van Niekerk et al 2008;Harris et al 2013). This includes several rare, endemic, migratory, and/or threatened fauna such as the African Manatee Trichechus senegalensis, turtle species and diverse waterbird species.…”

Section: Marine and Coastal Biodiversity Hotspots Threats And The Nementioning

confidence: 99%

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Marine Biodiversity of Angola: Biogeography and Conservation

Kirkman¹,

Nsingi²

2019

Biodiversity of Angola

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Some major physical and oceanographic features of the Angolan marine system include a narrow continental shelf, the warm, southward flowing Angola Current, the plume of the Congo River in the north and the Angola-Benguela Front in the south. Depth, substrate types and latitude have been shown to account for species differences in demersal faunal assemblages including fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods. The extremely narrow shelf between Tômbwa (15°48′S) and Benguela (12°33′S) may serve as a barrier for the spreading of shelf-occurring species between the far south, which is influenced by the Angola-Benguela Front, and the equatorial waters of the central and northern areas. A similar pattern is evident for coastal and shallow-water species, including fishes, intertidal invertebrates and seaweeds, with species that have temperate affinities found in the far south and tropical species further to the north. In general the fauna and flora of the littoral zone appears to be consistent with a pattern of relatively low diversity of the shore and near-shore areas, that is characteristic of West Africa, but paucity of data for Angola may make such comparisons of diversity with other areas inappropriate at this stage. The Congo River delta and many features that are interspersed along the coast such as estuaries and associated floodplains, wetlands, lagoons, salt marshes and mangroves, support a rich suite of species, many of which are rare, endemic, migratory, and/or threatened, and provide important ecosystem services. While the ecological value of many areas or features is recognised, lack of any legal protection in the form of marine protected areas (MPAs) has been identified as one of the main challenges facing conservation and sustainable use of Angola's marine and coastal biodiversity and habitats, in the face of multiple threats. A current process to identify and describe ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs) could provide a foundation for designating some MPAs in future.

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Intertidal habitat composition and regional-scale shoreline morphology along the Benguela coast

Cited by 15 publications

References 47 publications

Life on the boundary: Environmental factors as drivers of habitat distribution in the littoral zone

Life on the boundary: Environmental factors as drivers of habitat distribution in the littoral zone

Historical and contemporary range expansion of an invasive mussel, Semimytlius algosus, in Angola and Namibia despite data scarcity in an infrequently surveyed region

Marine Biodiversity of Angola: Biogeography and Conservation

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