Taxonomic and functional patterns of macrobenthic communities on a high-Arctic shelf: A case study from the Laptev Sea

Kokarev, V. N.; Vedenin, Andrey; Basin, A. B.; Azovsky, Andrey I.

doi:10.1016/j.seares.2017.08.011

Cited by 43 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Indeed, vegetated habitats provide refuge for many organisms, due to a decreased predation pressure, while in non-vegetated habitats the predation pressure often is high. Importantly, other studies have observed changes in diversity and composition of traits along environmental transects, for example, in the Laptev Sea, shallow and deep habitats were separated based on differing trait expression (Kokarev et al, 2017). Also along the Emilia-Romagna coastline, the trait expression of the community was different closer to the coastline compared to offshore (Paganelli et al, 2012) and similar results have been found in the Baltic Sea (Villnäs et al, 2019).…”

Section: Trait Composition In Different Habitatssupporting

confidence: 72%

Species Composition and Functional Traits of Macrofauna in Different Mangrove Habitats in the Persian Gulf

et al. 2020

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Macrofauna play a key role in the functioning of mangrove ecosystems. Nevertheless, our understanding of the diversity and functional structure of macrofaunal communities across different habitats in the mangrove forests of the Persian Gulf is limited. In this study, we investigated species diversity and biological trait patterns of macrofauna in different mangrove-associated habitats, i.e., encompassing actual mangrove forests, and adjacent Beaches and Creeks, which exhibit different levels of habitat heterogeneity. Samples were collected from the different habitats in five different locations, over four seasons. A total of 122 macrofauna taxa were identified. The diversity of species was higher in summer than in winter. In the Beach habitats, species diversity showed an increasing trend from land toward the mangrove, whereas in Creek habitats diversity decreased from the Creek toward the mangrove. Multivariate community analysis showed differences in the distribution of abundant species and biological traits across all habitats. Deposit-feeding, crawlers, medium-size, and free-living were the dominant trait modalities in all habitats. The similarities within habitats over the four seasons had the same specific pattern of species and biological trait abundance in the Beach and the Creek, increasing from the non-covered habitat into the mangrove trees. Although many species shared similar traits, the abundance-driven differences in trait expression between habitats showed the importance of habitat filtering. The results of this study will be useful in the conservation of mangrove forests and they give a deeper understanding of the ecological patterns and functions of benthic macrofaunal communities in the Persian Gulf.

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Section: Trait Composition In Different Habitatssupporting

confidence: 72%

Species Composition and Functional Traits of Macrofauna in Different Mangrove Habitats in the Persian Gulf

et al. 2020

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“…Strong differences existed in modality composition in 4 biological traits between the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea shelves: larval development, reproductive strategy, body size, and body form. These traits, to varying degrees, have been observed to drive variation in benthic ecosystem function in the North Sea (Bolam & Eggleton 2014) and the Arctic Ocean (Degen 2015, Kokarev et al 2017, Rand et al 2018. We suggest that these traits also contribute to differences in ecosystem functioning between the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea shelf communities.…”

Section: Trait Differences Between the Shelvesmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…High correlation ratios indicate strong relationships of biological traits with the FCA axes. Following previous studies on biological traits (Conti et al 2014, Kokarev et al 2017, we considered biological traits with correlation ratios > 0.1 as most representative of the variance captured by the FCA axes. All analyses evaluating differences in functional and taxonomic compositions were computed using the 'vegan' package (Oksanen et al 2019) in R version 4.0.2 (R Core Team 2020).…”

Section: Comparisons Of Functional and Taxonomic Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Support for this underlying assumption, for example, has been found for the macrobenthos in the Bering Sea (Liu et al 2019). Despite a long-standing and ongoing debate in the marine ecology scientific community of this concept (Naeem et al 1994), few studies have analyzed the relationship between taxonomic diversity and ecosystem function in Arctic benthic marine systems (but see Kokarev et al 2017, Rand et al 2018, Liu et al 2019, systems that are prone to perturbations. We contend here that, if the BEF assumption is correct, functional diversity on the 2 Arctic shelf communities should follow the same patterns as taxonomic diversity, as functional diversity is based in biological traits that are defined by a species' identity.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Comparison of functional diversity of two Alaskan Arctic shelf epibenthic communities

Sutton

Iken

Bluhm

et al. 2020

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Alaskan Arctic shelf communities are currently experiencing dramatic changes that will likely affect ecosystem functioning of Arctic marine benthic communities. Here, functional diversity based on biological traits was used to assess differences and similarities in ecosystem functioning between 2 shelf systems that are geographically close but vary in many environmental influences: the Arctic Beaufort and Chukchi Sea epibenthic communities. We hypothesized that (1) patterns of functional composition and diversity metrics reflect patterns in taxonomic composition and diversity metrics in these 2 shelf communities; and (2) patterns in functional diversity metrics are distinct between the 2 shelves. We evaluated 9 biological traits (body form, body size, feeding habit, fragility, larval development, living habit, movement, reproductive strategy, sociability) for 327 taxa in 2014 and 2015. For each trait, multiple modalities (specific expressions within a trait) were considered. Patterns in functional diversity metrics on both shelves reflected those in taxonomic diversity metrics. However, shelf communities were more similar in functional- than in taxonomic composition. Beaufort Sea communities had higher functional dissimilarity and functional evenness driven by differences in the modalities within body form, body size, larval development, and reproductive strategy. These traits primarily affect nutrient cycling, energy turnover, and recovery from disturbances, suggesting a stronger potential for future maintenance of ecosystem function, and indicating a more even use of resources in the Beaufort Sea. The combination of functional and taxonomic diversity metrics enabled a comprehensive understanding of how ecological niche space is used and how epibenthic communities function in Alaskan Arctic shelf systems.

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“…Trait information, however, is often not easy to find, and its collation requires a time and labor intensive survey of literature. This holds especially true for the polar regions, as 40 ecological information for many polar marine taxa is still scarce, and only few publications supplement traceable resources of trait information (Kokarev et al, 2017). An additional obstacle is that existing trait repositories focus mainly on species from temperate regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Arctic Traits Database – A repository of arctic benthic invertebrate traits

Degen¹,

Faulwetter²

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. The recently increased interest in marine trait-based studies highlights one general demand – the access to standardized, reference-based trait information. This demand holds especially true for polar regions, where the gathering of ecological information is still challenging. The Arctic Traits Database is a freely accessible online repository (https://doi.org/10.25365/phaidra.49; http://https://www.univie.ac.at/arctictraits) that fulfils these requests for one important component of polar marine life, the Arctic benthic macroinvertebrates. It accounts for 1) obligate traceability of information (every entry is linked to at least one source), 2) exchangeability among trait platforms (use of most common download formats), 3) standardization (use of most common terminology and coding scheme), and 4) user friendliness (granted by an intuitive web-interface and rapid and easy download options). The combination of these aspects makes the Arctic Traits Database the currently most sophisticated online accessible trait platform in (not only) marine ecology and a role-model for prospective databases of other marine compartments or other (also non-marine) ecosystems. At present the database covers 20 traits (85 trait categories) and holds altogether 8107 trait entries for 1211 macro- and megabenthic taxa. Thus, the Arctic Traits Database will foster and facilitate trait-based approaches in polar regions in the future and increase our ecological understanding of this rapidly changing system.

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Taxonomic and functional patterns of macrobenthic communities on a high-Arctic shelf: A case study from the Laptev Sea

Cited by 43 publications

References 38 publications

Species Composition and Functional Traits of Macrofauna in Different Mangrove Habitats in the Persian Gulf

Species Composition and Functional Traits of Macrofauna in Different Mangrove Habitats in the Persian Gulf

Comparison of functional diversity of two Alaskan Arctic shelf epibenthic communities

The Arctic Traits Database – A repository of arctic benthic invertebrate traits

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