Physical surrogates for macrofaunal distributions and abundance in a tropical gulf

Abstract

The characterisation of benthic habitats based on their abiotic (physical and chemical) attributes remains poorly defined in the marine environment, but is becoming increasingly central in the development of marine management plans in Australia and elsewhere in the world. The current study tested this link between physical and biological datasets for the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia. The results presented were based on a range of physical factors, including the sediment composition (grain size and carbonate content), sediment mobility, water depth and organic carbon flux, and their relationship to the distribution and diversity of benthic macrofauna was tested. The results reveal the importance of process-based indices, such as sediment mobility, in addition to other environmental factors in defining the distribution of the benthic macrofauna. The distribution of the benthic macrofauna changes gradationally across the south-eastern Gulf, associated with changes in the per cent mud and gravel, the seabed exposure and the water depth. Patterns of diversity also reveal the importance of physical processes such as sediment mobility in defining benthic habitats. The species–environment relationships observed at the small scale of the current study are consistent with broader associations observed for other organisms within the Gulf.

Gradients in Traits Composition and Their Relation to Environmental Complex-Gradients and Structuring Processes: a Study of Marine Sediment Species Communities

“…The second traitcline, current strength and particle deposition on the bottom, represented by PC2, is partly correlated with geomorphological features of the seabed (this gradient agrees with established knowledge in benthic ecology; e.g., [52,53]). Existence of the other traitcline, bottom currents and sediment constituents, represented by PC1, supports a hypothesis that structural elements produced by tubebuilding species are important in an ecological context.…”

Detecting Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems in the Southern Ocean using research trawls and underwater imagery

“…There have also been efforts to use surrogates like sediment composition and geomorphology to predict benthic habitats [17], including a framework for predicting the likelihood of encountering VMEs in East Antarctica based on depth, flow of bottom water, and location at the head of shelf cutting canyons [9]. No such relationship between geomorphic provinces and VMEs has been observed around the South Orkney Islands.…”

Broad-scale geomorphology and benthic habitats of the Perth coastal plain and Rottnest Shelf, Western Australia, identified in a merged topographic and bathymetric digital relief model

“…Roff et al 2003, Post et al 2006, Heap and Harris 2008). This approach is especially important in the development of marine conservation plans, where typically large areas of seabed (1000 km 2 ) are being considered for which there are very limited biological data (e.g.…”