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A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast
Benthic–pelagic coupling refers to the ecological relationships between benthic and pelagic environments. Studying such links is particularly useful to understand biological variation in intertidal organisms along marine coasts. Filter-feeding invertebrates are ecologically important on marine rocky...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6500718/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31106077 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6892 |
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author | Scrosati, Ricardo A. Ellrich, Julius A. |
author_facet | Scrosati, Ricardo A. Ellrich, Julius A. |
author_sort | Scrosati, Ricardo A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Benthic–pelagic coupling refers to the ecological relationships between benthic and pelagic environments. Studying such links is particularly useful to understand biological variation in intertidal organisms along marine coasts. Filter-feeding invertebrates are ecologically important on marine rocky shores, so they have often been used to investigate benthic–pelagic coupling. Most studies, however, have been conducted on eastern ocean boundaries. To evaluate benthic–pelagic coupling on a western ocean boundary, we conducted a 5-year study spanning 415 km of the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia (Canada). We hypothesized that the summer size of intertidal barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides) recruited in the preceding spring would be positively related to the nearshore abundance (biomass) of phytoplankton, as phytoplankton constitutes food for the nauplius larvae and benthic stages of barnacles. Every year between 2014 and 2018, we measured summer barnacle size in clearings created before spring recruitment on the rocky substrate at eight wave-exposed locations along this coast. We then examined the annual relationships between barnacle size and chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a), a proxy for phytoplankton biomass. For every year and location, we used satellite data to calculate Chl-a averages for a period ranging from the early spring (when most barnacle larvae were in the water) to the summer (when barnacle size was measured after weeks of growth following spring benthic recruitment). The relationships were always positive, Chl-a explaining nearly half, or more, of the variation in barnacle size in four of the five studied years. These are remarkable results because they were based on a relatively limited number of locations (which often curtails statistical power) and point to the relevance of pelagic food supply to explain variation in intertidal barnacle size along this western ocean boundary coast. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6500718 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65007182019-05-17 A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast Scrosati, Ricardo A. Ellrich, Julius A. PeerJ Ecology Benthic–pelagic coupling refers to the ecological relationships between benthic and pelagic environments. Studying such links is particularly useful to understand biological variation in intertidal organisms along marine coasts. Filter-feeding invertebrates are ecologically important on marine rocky shores, so they have often been used to investigate benthic–pelagic coupling. Most studies, however, have been conducted on eastern ocean boundaries. To evaluate benthic–pelagic coupling on a western ocean boundary, we conducted a 5-year study spanning 415 km of the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia (Canada). We hypothesized that the summer size of intertidal barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides) recruited in the preceding spring would be positively related to the nearshore abundance (biomass) of phytoplankton, as phytoplankton constitutes food for the nauplius larvae and benthic stages of barnacles. Every year between 2014 and 2018, we measured summer barnacle size in clearings created before spring recruitment on the rocky substrate at eight wave-exposed locations along this coast. We then examined the annual relationships between barnacle size and chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a), a proxy for phytoplankton biomass. For every year and location, we used satellite data to calculate Chl-a averages for a period ranging from the early spring (when most barnacle larvae were in the water) to the summer (when barnacle size was measured after weeks of growth following spring benthic recruitment). The relationships were always positive, Chl-a explaining nearly half, or more, of the variation in barnacle size in four of the five studied years. These are remarkable results because they were based on a relatively limited number of locations (which often curtails statistical power) and point to the relevance of pelagic food supply to explain variation in intertidal barnacle size along this western ocean boundary coast. PeerJ Inc. 2019-05-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6500718/ /pubmed/31106077 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6892 Text en ©2019 Scrosati and Ellrich http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Ecology Scrosati, Ricardo A. Ellrich, Julius A. A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast |
title | A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast |
title_full | A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast |
title_fullStr | A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast |
title_full_unstemmed | A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast |
title_short | A 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the Atlantic Canadian coast |
title_sort | 5-year study (2014–2018) of the relationship between coastal phytoplankton abundance and intertidal barnacle size along the atlantic canadian coast |
topic | Ecology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6500718/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31106077 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6892 |
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