Shellfish Reefs Increase Water Storage Capacity on Intertidal Flats Over Extensive Spatial Scales

Abstract

Ecosystem engineering species can affect their environment at multiple spatial scales, from the local scale up to a significant distance, by indirectly affecting the surrounding habitats. Structural changes in the landscape can have important consequences for ecosystem functioning, for example, by increasing retention of limiting resources in the system. Yet, it remains poorly understood how extensive the footprint of ecosystem engineers on the landscape is. Using remote sensing techniques, we reveal that depression storage capacity on intertidal flats is greatly enhanced by engineering by shellfish resulting in intertidal pools. Many organisms use such pools to bridge low water events. This storage capacity was significantly higher both locally within the shellfish reef, but also at extensive spatial scales up to 115 m beyond the physical reef borders. Therefore, the footprint of these ecosystem engineers on the landscape was more than 5 times larger than their actual coverage; the shellfish cover approximately 2% of the total intertidal zone, whereas they influence up to approximately 11% of the area by enhancing water storage capacity. We postulate that increased residence time of water due to higher water storage capacity within engineered landscapes is an important determinant of ecosystem functioning that may extend well beyond the case of shellfish reefs provided here.

Habitat Modification and Coastal Protection by Ecosystem-Engineering Reef-Building Bivalves

“…The Oosterschelde is a coastal bay (tidal range at the study site 3 m, salinity 30 ppt) that suffers from eroding intertidal flats, due to infrastructural works (i.e. construction of a storm-surge barrier) in the 1980s (Nienhuis and Smaal 1994;Walles et al 2016a). Tidal flats are eroding on average 1 cm.…”

Evaluatie gebruikerservaringen Satellietdataportaal

“…2014 1 jan-28 feb (2x pw); 1 maa-31 okt (3x pw); 1 nov-31-dec (2x pw); 2015 1 jan-28 feb (2x pw); 2016 1 jan-31-dec (2x pw) (Kerstens, Giannopapa et al 2017) (Wal, Vullings et al 2017) 2018 (Fokker, van Leijen et al 2018) (Nieuwhof, van Belzen et al 2018) Bron ( Ground surface dynamics is one of the processes influencing the future of the Wadden Sea area.…”

A kernel‐based change detection method to map shifts in phytoplankton communities measured by flow cytometry

“…For example, Nieuwhof et al. (2018) detected changes in water storage capacity as the distance from shellfish reefs increased, and Li et al. (2019) identified the boundary of the Antarctic Intermediate Waterway.…”

“…For example, Nieuwhof et al (2018) detected changes in water storage capacity as the distance from shellfish reefs increased, and Li et al (2019) identified the boundary of the Antarctic Intermediate Waterway. In this work, we draw on ideas from the nonparametric statistics and machine learning literature and develop a retrospective change-point estimation method for series of point cloud data that can be applied to segment flow cytometry data.…”