Unjustifiably Ignored: Reflections on the Role of Benthos in Marine Ecosystems

Arntz, Wolf; Gili, Josep María; Reise, Karsten

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-4649-4_5

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 119 publications

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“…Macrofaunal species are capable of substantial filtration/gathering of organic matter and sizeable biodeposit production (Widdows et al, 1998;Arntz et al, 1999), especially in densely populated epifaunal communities such as bivalve beds (Giles and Pilditch, 2006). Once consumed, material is either assimilated into biomass or rejected in the form of faeces and pseudo-faeces (Wotton and Malmqvist 2001).…”

Section: Ecosystem Process: Organic Matter Removal and Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine biodiversity and ecosystem function relationships: The potential for practical monitoring applications

Strong

Andonegi

Bizsel³

et al. 2015

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

128

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There is an increasing demand for environmental assessments of the marine environment to include ecosystem function. However, existing schemes are predominantly based on taxonomic (i.e. structural) measures of biodiversity. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function (BEF) relationships are suggested to provide a mechanism for converting taxonomic information into surrogates of ecosystem function. This review assesses the evidence for marine BEF relationships and their potential to be used in practical monitoring applications (i.e. operationalized).Five key requirements were identified for the practical application of BEF relationships: 1) a complete understanding of strength, direction and prevalence of marine BEF relationships, 2) an understanding of which biological components are influential within specific BEF relationships, 3) the biodiversity of the selected biological components can be measured easily, 4) detail which ecological mechanisms are the most important for generating marine BEF relationships, e.g. identity effects or complementarity, and 5) establish what proportion of the overall functional variance is explained by biodiversity, and hence BEF relationships.Many positive and some negative BEF relationships were found within the literature, although many reproduced poorly the natural species richness, trophic structures or multiple functions of real ecosystems. Null relationships were also reported. The consistency of the positive and negative relationships was often low that compromised the ability to generalize BEF relationships and confident application of BEF within marine monitoring. Equally, some biological components and functions have received little or no investigation.Expert judgement was used to attribute biological components using spatial extent, presence and functional rate criteria. This approach highlighted the main contributing biological components to the ecosystem functions, and that many of the particularly influential components were found to have received the least amount of research attention.The need for biodiversity to be measureable (requirement 3) is possible for most biological components although difficult within the functionally important microbes. 3Identity effects underpinned most marine BEF relationships (requirement 4). As such, processes that translated structural biodiversity measures into functional diversity were found to generate better BEF relationships.The analysis of the contribution made by biodiversity, over abiotic influences, to the total expression of a particular ecosystem function was rarely measured or considered (requirement 5). Hence it is not possible to determine the overall importance of BEF relationships within the total ecosystem functioning observed. In the few studies where abiotic factors had been considered, it was clear that these modified BEF relationships and have their own direct influence on functional rate.Based on the five requirements, the information required for immediate 'operationalization' of BEF relationships within marin...

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Section: Ecosystem Process: Organic Matter Removal and Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine biodiversity and ecosystem function relationships: The potential for practical monitoring applications

Strong

Andonegi

Bizsel³

et al. 2015

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

128

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“…Finally, succession of benthic communities is illustrated with a few examples, particularly in relation to increased oxygen deficiency followed by re-oxygenation. Arntz et al (1999) have recently, in a partly provocative paper, reviewed several aspects related to benthic fauna: interaction, diversity, larval settlement and recolonisation. These aspects are therefore not treated in the present paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine benthic faunal successional stages and related sedimentary activity

Rosenberg¹

2001

Sci. Mar.

187

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SUMMARY: This paper is a brief review of successional stages and activity of benthic soft-bottom communities. Benthic communities was first described by Petersen in the 1910s and further developed by Molander, Thorson and Margalef. Successional stages of benthic communities chance in a predictable way in relation to environmental disturbance and food availability. Food supply to the bottom can occur as a vertical flux, but transport through lateral advection is more important in some areas. While at the bottom, the infauna processes the food in many different ways, and the feeding modes can be categorised into more than 20 functional groups, but fewer are present in brackish water. This categorisation is based on animal mobility and where and how they ingest the food. Animal activity in the sediment, bioturbation, has a significant effect on redox conditions and diagenetic processes. Structures in the sediment due to infaunal presence and activity can be observed in situ by sediment profile imaging, and the biogenic structures and redox conditions can be parameterised and have been shown to correlate to benthic community successional stages. The largest threat to benthic faunal biodiversity is the spread of near-bottom oxygen deficiency in many enclosed are stratified coastal areas.

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“…There is a close relationship between the physical benthic substrate, 55 hydrodynamics and the benthic organisms that dictates where different species are found. Due to high 56 site fidelity, the benthos are easy to examine spatially and temporally meaning they are ideal subjects 57 for studying the impacts of disturbances (Arntz et al, 1999). However, as many benthic species are 58 either sessile (non-mobile) or semi-sessile, they are at greater risk to changes in the physical benthic 59…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%