Reef-forming polychaetes outcompetes ecosystem engineering mussels

Succession in an intertidal benthic community affected by untreated sewage effluent: A case of study in the SW Atlantic shore

“…A similar pattern to the above described observation (i.e. before and after storms, causing sand deposition) was previously discussed by Jaubet et al (2013Jaubet et al ( , 2015.…”

“…Previous to this modification, the area showed an increasing nutrient enrichment condition, turning into a sewage-polluted habitat (Vallarino et al, 2002;Elías et al, 2006;Elías et al, 2009;Jaubet et al, 2011;Sánchez et al, 2013). The benthic community near the sewage Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2016) xxx-xxx discharge area has being studied for over the past 15 years, chiefly assessing the effect of organic enrichment over the epilithic mussels bed-forming Brachidontes rodriguezii (family Mytilidae) (Vallarino et al, 2002;Elías et al, 2006;Sánchez et al, 2013) and the invasive polychaete Boccardia proboscidea (family Spionidae) (Jaubet et al, 2011;Garaffo et al, 2012;Jaubet et al, 2013;Elías et al, 2015). The macrobenthos community affected by the sewage outfall shows populations of B. rodriguezii in a lower density and with bigger individuals than those inhabiting non-impacted areas (Vallarino et al, 2014), and with eventually high density of the tube-building reef Boccardia proboscidea (Jaubet et al, 2011.…”

“…Given that the benthic community of the study area responds to sewage outfall discharge varying its functioning and structure (Garaffo et al, 2012;Jaubet et al, 2013) the present study was designed to determinate: 1) if the macrobenthos characteristics of impacted areas with nutrient enrichment show lower time of recovery during succession, and 2) whether a primary effect of environmental enrichment and starting period of the succession alters the diversity and composition of macrobenthos communities.…”

Effect of the invader Boccardia proboscidea (Polychaeta: Spionidae) on richness, diversity and structure of SW Atlantic epilithic intertidal community

“…In the present study, only 6 species were responsible for the 98% of individuals. The reef formations, resulting from the bloom of Boccardia proboscidea, cover almost entirely the sewage-impacted sites, from 50 to 1200 m south to outfall when this study was developed (Jaubet et al, 2013). Nowadays, the intertidal area shows patches of mussel community alternating with polychaetes reefs.…”

“…On one hand, the ecosystem engineer mussel B. rodriguezii has dominated and characterized this community through time (see Scelzo et al, 1996 and references therein), even in sewage-impacted sites Elias, 2006). However, the increasing contamination nearby the sewage outfall caused a significant decrease in the mussel population (Jaubet et al, 2013;Vallarino et al, 2014). On the other hand, the sudden explosion of the B. proboscidea population, gave rise to the appearance of an polychaete-made reef, while this species had been previously reported as a not reefbuilding one (Jaubet et al, 2011;Garaffo et al, 2012).…”