Settlement of a Tropical Marine Epibenthic Assemblage on Artificial Panels: Influence of Substratum Heterogeneity and Complexity Scales

Pech, Daniel; Ardisson, Pedro-Luis; Bourget, Edwin

doi:10.1006/ecss.2001.0933

Cited by 31 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Predation, local hydrodynamics, the presence of established recruits and environmental variables can all influence variation in settlement (Keough 1998;Ross 2001;Pech et al 2002). However, in this study, there was no direct evidence of predation on settlers as no predators were identified in the taxa on the panels.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 42%

The influence of estuarine water quality on cover of barnacles and Enteromorpha spp.

Courtenay¹,

Gladstone

Scammell

et al. 2010

Environ Monit Assess

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1 This is the accepted version of the manuscript that was published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 175:685-697 (2011).Abstract. The influence of ambient water quality on the settlement of barnacles and the green alga Enteromorpha spp.to an artificial substratum in the estuaries of Sydney, Australia, was investigated to test the efficacy of both groups of organisms as indicators of changes in water quality due to urban stormwater runoff and/or sewage overflows. Wooden settlement panels were immersed for four months on 17 occasions between 1996 and 2005 at 11 locations known to vary in water quality parameters (conductivity, total uncombined ammonia, oxidised nitrogen, total nitrogen, filterable phosphorus, total phosphorus, faecal coliforms and chlorophyll-a) and ambient meteorological conditions (total rainfall, maximum rainfall). Water quality data were collected during the time that the settlement panels were deployed. Cover of barnacles was highly variable among locations (range 1.2 -55.2%). Hierarchical partitioning found that chlorophylla, total phosphorus and total nitrogen had significant independent positive effects on barnacle cover. Together, these variables explained 26% of the variation in barnacle cover. Mean cover of Enteromorpha spp., however, did not vary significantly among locations suggesting that other potentially more important factors are influencing its settlement and growth. The results of this study suggest that barnacle cover is likely to be a useful indicator of some components of water quality.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 42%

The influence of estuarine water quality on cover of barnacles and Enteromorpha spp.

Courtenay¹,

Gladstone

Scammell

et al. 2010

Environ Monit Assess

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“…Benthic time-series studies using imaging techniques may focus on recruitment and succession (Beuchel and Gulliksen 2008;Pech et al 2002;Stanwellsmith and Barnes 1997), megafaunal activity , climate variations (Beuchel et al 2006), and population dynamics of selected species (Fujita and Ohta 1988;Tyler et al 1993).…”

Section: Digital Image Analysis Of Epibenthosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counting and measuring epibenthic organisms from digital photographs: A semiautomated approach

Beuchel¹,

Primicerio²,

Lønne³

et al. 2010

Limnology & Ocean Methods

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Benthic rocky bottom studies often investigate community structure and function where estimates of percentage cover and abundance of epibenthic organisms are required. Nondestructive photographic methods have the advantage of preserving benthic communities for repeated sampling. There is a need to accelerate image processing to make sample analysis more cost efficient and to make the data available in a timely manner. A semiautomated procedure to estimate epibenthic cover and abundance using Adobe Photoshop and the image analysis plug‐in Fovea Pro was developed to meet this need. The method improves upon previous techniques by using color‐based automated selection tools and a species‐coding system. The technique required some manual processing because some species were less suitable for color recognition and the photographs were of inconsistent quality. The semiautomated selection of colony‐forming organisms was validated by comparing it to a strictly manual approach using a data set from Balsfjord/northern Norway. Constrained ordination and Procrustes analyses showed that the automatic and manual methods were equally effective at documenting variation in the species/abundance data along the driving ecological gradient of depth. The minor deviations in species abundance estimation between the two methods (mostly <20%) were unrelated to the depth gradient and thus had negligible influence on the main ecological conclusions of the study. The semiautomated method is up to four times faster than the manual approach, has clear advantages over former benthic image analysis methods, and is well suited for detection of systematic biological patterns like ecological gradients.

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“…The physical structure of subtidal reefs profoundly affects associated biological assemblages of fish, invertebrates and plants, in part through the provision of refuges from predation (Hixon & Beets 1993, Drolet et al 2004a, and also through interactions with other environmental factors such as water flow (Shepherd & Partington 1995, Lapointe & Bourget 1999, Pech et al 2002 and light (Spanier & Almogshtayer 1992, Drolet et al 2004b. Most research effort examining associations between subtidal reef structure and marine communities has been focused on tropical systems and fish species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships between mobile macroinvertebrates and reef structure in a temperate marine reserve

Alexander

Barrett²,

Haddon³

et al. 2009

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Relationships between different metrics of reef structure and the density of macroinvertebrates were examined at 3 nested spatial scales inside and outside a long-established, 'no-take' marine protected area (MPA) at Maria Island, Tasmania, Australia. Generalized linear models were developed that best explained the contributions of rugosity, substratum composition (different-sized boulders, bedrock, sand) and refuge metrics to the spatial variability in invertebrate species richness, total abundance, and the abundances of major taxonomic classes and focal species. To distinguish responses associated with protection from fishing from those relating to natural geographic variation, relationships between reef structure and invertebrate density were also assessed using survey data from before the MPA came into effect. Models combining reef structure and MPA protection explained between 44 to 67% of spatial variability of total invertebrate abundance across all survey scales examined (1 × 5, 1 × 50 and 1 × 200 m). The number of refuge size categories provided the best predictor of invertebrate species richness at the 5 m scale; however, no reef structure metric investigated was significant at the largest (200 m) spatial scale for species richness. Amongst the explanatory variables examined, MPA protection and density of small refuges generated significant responses for the majority of taxa. One commonly applied metric of reef structure, rugosity, was found to be a relatively poor predictor of invertebrate abundance and richness, generating few significant relationships. Comparisons with pre-MPA data indicated that protection from fishing greatly influenced most major components of the invertebrate community, while reef structure appears to have little interactive influence on these MPA effects at the scales tested here.

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Settlement of a Tropical Marine Epibenthic Assemblage on Artificial Panels: Influence of Substratum Heterogeneity and Complexity Scales

Cited by 31 publications

References 40 publications

The influence of estuarine water quality on cover of barnacles and Enteromorpha spp.

The influence of estuarine water quality on cover of barnacles and Enteromorpha spp.

Counting and measuring epibenthic organisms from digital photographs: A semiautomated approach

Relationships between mobile macroinvertebrates and reef structure in a temperate marine reserve

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