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Testing taxonomic resolution levels for ecological monitoring in sandy beach macrobenthic communities
Author(s) -
Defeo Omar,
Lercari Diego
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
aquatic conservation: marine and freshwater ecosystems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.95
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1099-0755
pISSN - 1052-7613
DOI - 10.1002/aqc.594
Subject(s) - taxonomic rank , ecology , community structure , abundance (ecology) , ecological succession , biomass (ecology) , phylum , relative species abundance , biology , taxon , genetics , bacteria
1. Sandy beaches are subject to a variety of human‐induced disturbances. However, very little is known about the consequences of disturbances on macroinfauna inhabiting these systems. 2. We evaluate the concepts of taxonomic and functional sufficiency and their potential applicability to cost‐effective assessment of environmental impacts on sandy beaches. To this end, we assess the effects of an artificial freshwater discharge on the macroinfauna inhabiting three sites of a sandy beach in Uruguay affected by a gradient of effect, using different taxonomic resolution levels. 3. Species abundance and biomass data were aggregated into family, class, phylum and functional feeding guilds; distance matrices between samples were constructed for every aggregation level. Non‐metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), analysis of similarities (ANOSIM) and correlation between distance matrices from different levels of aggregation were used to explore the taxonomic resolution needed to detect the environmental impact. 4. The impact was detected at every aggregation level, including functional feeding guilds. Taxonomic resolution did not affect the outcome of the multivariate analyses, suggesting that higher taxonomic levels could be used to provide rapid responses for detecting ecological impacts in sandy beaches, or in cases with a lack of knowledge about community composition. 5. Even though NMDS with abundance data lost more information than with biomass as the taxonomic resolution decreased, it provided a better description of the short‐term succession in community structure at the site with intermediate disturbance. 6. Aggregation to higher taxonomic levels did not reduce the ability of ANOSIM to discriminate between sites. The large seasonal variations in community structure give strong support to recent findings that showed that sandy beach fauna is highly plastic and has a short‐term capacity for recovery from disturbances. Thus, we strongly suggest circumventing snapshot samplings in order to avoid misinterpretation of results arising from strong seasonal variations in community structure and abundance. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.