[OANNES Foro] Material type and roughness influence structure of inter-tidal communities on coastal defenses

[Mario Cabrejos]

Marine Ecology

 <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1439-0485/earlyview>
Early View (Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue)

Article first published online: 28 MAR 2016

DOI: 10.1111/maec.12354


 


 


Material type and roughness influence structure of inter-tidal communities
on coastal defenses


1.     Eva Cacabelos1,*, Gustavo M. Martins1,2, Richard Thompson3, Afonso C.
L. Prestes1, José Manuel N. Azevedo1 and Ana I. Neto1

1 cE3c – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes/Azorean
Biodiversity Group, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade dos Açores, São
Miguel, Azores, Portugal 2 CIIMAR-Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação
Marinha e Ambiental, Porto, Portugal 3 Marine Biology and Ecology Research
Centre, Plymouth University, Plymouth, Devon, UK. * Correspondence  Eva
Cacabelos E-mail:  <mailto:evacacabelos en yahoo.es> evacacabelos en yahoo.es


 


Abstract


On a global scale, urbanization has resulted in substantial proportions of
coasts being replaced by artificial structures such as marinas, breakwaters
and seawalls. There is broad consensus that coastal defense structures are
poor surrogates of the natural habitats that they replace. Here we
investigated the effects of the type and roughness of materials used for the
construction of artificial structures on the surrounding biota by comparing
abundances and distribution of key inter-tidal taxa between natural shores
and coastal defenses. Lower abundances of gastropods and barnacles were
found on artificial coastal defense structures (regardless of the material
type). At small spatial scales, abundances of key taxa increased with
increasing roughness. Our results suggest that the choice of materials used
for the construction of coastal defense structures has little effect on
community structure per se, but that enhanced roughness could make coastal
defenses better surrogates of natural habitats by supporting assemblages
that are more similar to those found on natural shores.

 



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