The role of gorgonians on the diversity of vagile benthic fauna in Mediterranean rocky habitats

Ponti, Massimo; Grech, Daniele; Mori, Masato; Perlini, Rossella Angela; Ventra, Vincenzo; Panzalis, Pier; Cerrano, Carlo

doi:10.1007/s00227-016-2897-8

Cited by 40 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…At high gorgonian density, edaphic conditions (e.g. physical factors such as light, currents, and sedimentation rates) may be strongly modified, increasing habitat complexity and supporting many necto‐benthic organisms (Cerrano et al, ; Ponti et al, ; Valisano, Notari, Mori, & Cerrano, ). This study highlighted that the direct or indirect effects of the gorgonians on the abundance of other species, such as green algal turfs and non‐encrusting peyssonneliacean algae, may vary with gorgonian density, in terms of percentage cover.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the habitat complexity built up by ecosystem engineers induces physical changes, but may also modify many biological processes, with unpredictable ecological effects (Kelaher, ). Although the mechanisms underlying these processes are still not well understood, forests of P. clavata , besides modifying the microscale hydrodynamics, may provide additional food resources, being an effective suspension feeder able to modify littoral marine food webs (Coma et al, ; Gili & Coma, ), and increase refuges and the available surface area (Ponti et al, ; Valisano et al, ), as well as affect recruitment processes (Ponti et al, ). According to the present results, these animal forests support high species diversity and promote bioconstruction processes in their understorey.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The understorey of gorgonian forests in mesophotic temperate reefs

Ponti

Turicchia

Ferro

et al. 2018

Aquatic Conservation

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1. In the Mediterranean Sea, dense populations of the gorgonian Paramuricea clavata shape marine animal forests, characterizing the seascapes of coralligenous habitats.Despite concerns for its health, with several anthropogenic threats and recent mass mortality events, mainly triggered by thermal anomalies, the understorey of its forests and the ecological processes that they promote are still little known. Here, the abundance and composition of epibenthic assemblages inside and outside P. clavata forests were investigated across the central and western Mediterranean Sea, by applying a multifactorial sampling design.2. In spite of the large variability in the structures of epibenthic assemblages at local and regional scales, the gorgonian understoreys share some common features, such as higher abundances of calcareous builder organisms and reduced invasion by the non-indigenous alga Caulerpa cylindracea, compared with the adjacent unforested rocky bottoms. Paramuricea clavata showed non-linear density-dependent relationships with algal turfs and non-encrusting algae belonging to the genus Peyssonnelia. Moreover, by entrapping benthic mucilaginous aggregates with their branches, these gorgonians risk topical necrotic lesions, but may reduce the suffocation risks for understorey organisms. 3. Overall, P. clavata forests may enhance bioconstruction processes and increase resistance and resilience of the benthic assemblages in the Mediterranean coralligenous habitats. This species and its forests, together with their understoreys, should be considered as essential elements of the ecology of the Mediterranean Sea, and therefore worthy of specific and effective protection measures. 4. Conservation strategies should reduce the risk of mechanical damage by regulating fishing activities, anchorages, and scuba diving where gorgonian forests are present. Moreover, when evident alterations are documented, restoration actions should be implemented to recover the integrity of gorgonian forests.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The understorey of gorgonian forests in mesophotic temperate reefs

Ponti

Turicchia

Ferro

et al. 2018

Aquatic Conservation

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“…It has been demonstrated that a decrease in the abundance of habitat-forming species leads to a rapid fragmentation in community structure and a loss of species benefiting from the structural complexity these species provide23242526. C. rubrum is a slow-growing, long-lived species, and plays a key role as a habitat forming species and in the functioning of coralligenous habitats mainly due to its trophic activity, biomass and perennial biogenic structure as other Mediterranean gorgonian species102427. Despite this essential role, few studies deal with the characterization and variability, at high resolution of the whole assemblage and over relevant temporal and regional scales (but see refs 28 and 29).…”

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confidence: 99%

Structure and biodiversity of coralligenous assemblages dominated by the precious red coral Corallium rubrum over broad spatial scales

Casas-Güell

Cebrián

Garrabou

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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Data on species diversity and structure in coralligenous outcrops dominated by Corallium rubrum are lacking. A hierarchical sampling including 3 localities and 9 sites covering more than 400 km of rocky coasts in NW Mediterranean, was designed to characterize the spatial variability of structure, composition and diversity of perennial species inhabiting coralligenous outcrops. We estimated species/taxa composition and abundance. Eight morpho-functional groups were defined according to their life span and growth to characterize the structural complexity of the outcrops. The species composition and structural complexity differed consistently across all spatial scales considered. The lowest and the highest variability were found among localities (separated by >200 km) and within sites (separated by 1–5 km), respectively supporting differences in diversity indices. The morpho-functional groups displayed a consistent spatial arrangement in terms of the number, size and shape of patches across study sites. These results contribute to filling the gap on the understanding of assemblage composition and structure and to build baselines to assess the response of this of this highly threatened habitat to anthropogenic disturbances.

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“…This is a slow-growing, long-lived and low fecundity species which forms dense forests along outcrops, cliffs and biogenic substrates [2] from −15 m to −200 m depth [3,4]. P. clavata is of special interest in coralligenous habitats because its canopy reduces the range of environmental variability and supports key associated biota [3,5,6]. The annual linear growth rate for the species ranges between 2.7 cm and 3.0 cm, with larger rates observed for smaller colonies [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As cold-affinity species, P. clavata has a high sensitivity to thermal stress [10,11] and is therefore considered an indicator species of climate effects on benthic assemblages [12]. In the last decades, the gorgonian forests in the Mediterranean Sea have been affected by mass mortality events triggered by water temperature anomalies that have led to functional changes in the coralligenous habitat, and to local extinctions of the species in shallow waters [6,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Moreover, the short larval dispersion of P. clavata could inhibit genetic exchanges between populations increasing their genetic isolation and limit the species recovery to mass mortality events [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SfM-Based Method to Assess Gorgonian Forests (Paramuricea clavata (Cnidaria, Octocorallia))

Palma¹,

Casado

Pantaleo³

et al. 2018

Remote Sensing

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Animal forests promote marine habitats morphological complexity and functioning. The red gorgonian, Paramuricea clavata, is a key structuring species of the Mediterranean coralligenous habitat and an indicator species of climate effects on habitat functioning. P. clavata metrics such as population structure, morphology and biomass inform on the overall health of coralligenous habitats, but the estimation of these metrics is time and cost consuming, and often requires destructive sampling. As a consequence, the implementation of long-term and wide-area monitoring programmes is limited. This study proposes a novel and transferable Structure from Motion (SfM) based method for the estimation of gorgonian population structure (i.e., maximal height, density, abundance), morphometries (i.e., maximal width, fan surface) and biomass (i.e., coenenchymal Dry Weight, Ash Free Dried Weight). The method includes the estimation of a novel metric (3D canopy surface) describing the gorgonian forest as a mosaic of planes generated by fitting multiple 5 cm × 5 cm facets to a SfM generated point cloud. The performance of the method is assessed for two different cameras (GoPro Hero4 and Sony NEX7). Results showed that for highly dense populations (17 colonies/m2), the SfM-method had lower accuracies in estimating the gorgonians density for both cameras (60% to 89%) than for medium to low density populations (14 and 7 colonies/m2) (71% to 100%). Results for the validation of the method showed that the correlation between ground truth and SfM estimates for maximal height, maximal width and fan surface were between R2 = 0.63 and R2 = 0.9, and R2 = 0.99 for coenenchymal surface estimation. The methodological approach was used to estimate the biomass of the gorgonian population within the study area and across the coralligenous habitat between −25 to −40 m depth in the Portofino Marine Protected Area. For that purpose, the coenenchymal surface of sampled colonies was obtained and used for the calculations. Results showed biomass values of dry weight and ash free dry weight of 220 g and 32 g for the studied area and to 365 kg and 55 Kg for the coralligenous habitat in the Marine Protected Area. This study highlighted the feasibility of the methodology for the quantification of P. clavata metrics as well as the potential of the SfM-method to improve current predictions of the status of the coralligenous habitat in the Mediterranean sea and overall management of threatened ecosystems.

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The role of gorgonians on the diversity of vagile benthic fauna in Mediterranean rocky habitats

Cited by 40 publications

References 51 publications

The understorey of gorgonian forests in mesophotic temperate reefs

The understorey of gorgonian forests in mesophotic temperate reefs

Structure and biodiversity of coralligenous assemblages dominated by the precious red coral Corallium rubrum over broad spatial scales

SfM-Based Method to Assess Gorgonian Forests (Paramuricea clavata (Cnidaria, Octocorallia))

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