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Intertidal mussels as ecosystem engineers: their associated invertebrate biodiversity under contrasting wave exposures

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Abstract

Mussels often act as ecosystem engineers in rocky intertidal habitats, favoring the occurrence of many small invertebrates by increasing habitat complexity and improving local environmental conditions. This study tests the hypothesis that invertebrate assemblages from intertidal mussel beds differ between wave-sheltered and wave-exposed habitats. To this aim, we surveyed exposed and sheltered sites spanning 350 km of coastline in Nova Scotia, Canada. We identified all invertebrates and measured their abundance in replicate quadrats that were fully covered by mussels. In total, we found 50 invertebrate taxa living in these mussel beds. Multivariate analyses revealed that the composition of invertebrate assemblages differed significantly between both habitat types. Exposed habitats supported a greater species richness, and the species that mainly explained the compositional difference between both environments were more abundant in exposed ones. Assemblages were taxonomically dominated by arthropods, annelids, and molluscs and numerically dominated by tubificid oligochaetes regardless of exposure. Our results suggest that exposed habitats may favor the occurrence of filter-feeders, such as barnacles, and sheltered habitats the occurrence of predators, such as small crabs and sea stars, in intertidal mussel beds from the NW Atlantic coast.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Julius Ellrich for laboratory assistance, to two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, to the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC, Discovery Grant) for financial support to R.A.S., to the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) for financial support to L.P.A. through an Emerging Leaders of the Americas Program (ELAP) graduate student scholarship, and to the University of Naples for financial support to L.D. through a graduate student scholarship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Saint Francis Xavier University, 2320 Notre Dame Ave, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, B2G 2W5, Canada

    Lorena P. Arribas, Luigia Donnarumma & Ricardo A. Scrosati

  2. “Bernardino Rivadavia” Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, Av. Ángel Gallardo 470, C1405DJR, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Lorena P. Arribas & M. Gabriela Palomo

  3. Department of Science and Technology, University of Naples “Parthenope”, Centro Direzionale—Isola C4, 80143, Naples, Italy

    Luigia Donnarumma

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  1. Lorena P. Arribas
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  2. Luigia Donnarumma
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  3. M. Gabriela Palomo
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  4. Ricardo A. Scrosati
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Correspondence to Ricardo A. Scrosati.

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Arribas, L.P., Donnarumma, L., Palomo, M.G. et al. Intertidal mussels as ecosystem engineers: their associated invertebrate biodiversity under contrasting wave exposures. Mar Biodiv 44, 203–211 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-014-0201-z

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