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Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats
Understanding the consequences of fragmentation of coastal habitats is an important topic of discussion in marine ecology. Research on the effects of fragmentation has revealed complex and context-dependent biotic responses, which prevent generalizations across different habitats or study organisms....
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4640819/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26554924 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0142289 |
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author | Matias, Miguel G. Arenas, Francisco Rubal, Marcos Pinto, Isabel S. |
author_facet | Matias, Miguel G. Arenas, Francisco Rubal, Marcos Pinto, Isabel S. |
author_sort | Matias, Miguel G. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Understanding the consequences of fragmentation of coastal habitats is an important topic of discussion in marine ecology. Research on the effects of fragmentation has revealed complex and context-dependent biotic responses, which prevent generalizations across different habitats or study organisms. The effects of fragmentation in marine environments have been rarely investigated across heterogeneous habitats, since most studies have focused on a single type of habitat or patch. In this study, we assessed the effects of different levels of fragmentation (i.e. decreasing size of patches without overall habitat loss). We measured these effects using assemblages of macro-invertebrates colonizing representative morphological groups of intertidal macroalgae (e.g. encrusting, turf and canopy-forming algae). For this purpose, we constructed artificial assemblages with different combinations of morphological groups and increasing levels of fragmentation by manipulating the amount of bare rock or the spatial arrangement of different species in mixed assemblages. In general, our results showed that 1) fragmentation did not significantly affect the assemblages of macroinvertebrates; 2) at greater levels of fragmentation, there were greater numbers of species in mixed algal assemblages, suggesting that higher habitat complexity promotes species colonization. Our results suggest that predicting the consequences of fragmentation in heterogeneous habitats is dependent on the type and diversity of morphological groups making up those habitats. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4640819 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46408192015-11-13 Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats Matias, Miguel G. Arenas, Francisco Rubal, Marcos Pinto, Isabel S. PLoS One Research Article Understanding the consequences of fragmentation of coastal habitats is an important topic of discussion in marine ecology. Research on the effects of fragmentation has revealed complex and context-dependent biotic responses, which prevent generalizations across different habitats or study organisms. The effects of fragmentation in marine environments have been rarely investigated across heterogeneous habitats, since most studies have focused on a single type of habitat or patch. In this study, we assessed the effects of different levels of fragmentation (i.e. decreasing size of patches without overall habitat loss). We measured these effects using assemblages of macro-invertebrates colonizing representative morphological groups of intertidal macroalgae (e.g. encrusting, turf and canopy-forming algae). For this purpose, we constructed artificial assemblages with different combinations of morphological groups and increasing levels of fragmentation by manipulating the amount of bare rock or the spatial arrangement of different species in mixed assemblages. In general, our results showed that 1) fragmentation did not significantly affect the assemblages of macroinvertebrates; 2) at greater levels of fragmentation, there were greater numbers of species in mixed algal assemblages, suggesting that higher habitat complexity promotes species colonization. Our results suggest that predicting the consequences of fragmentation in heterogeneous habitats is dependent on the type and diversity of morphological groups making up those habitats. Public Library of Science 2015-11-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4640819/ /pubmed/26554924 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0142289 Text en © 2015 Matias et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Matias, Miguel G. Arenas, Francisco Rubal, Marcos Pinto, Isabel S. Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats |
title | Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats |
title_full | Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats |
title_fullStr | Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats |
title_full_unstemmed | Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats |
title_short | Macroalgal Composition Determines the Structure of Benthic Assemblages Colonizing Fragmented Habitats |
title_sort | macroalgal composition determines the structure of benthic assemblages colonizing fragmented habitats |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4640819/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26554924 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0142289 |
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