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Complementary influences of co-occurring physical ecosystem engineers on species richness: insights from a Patagonian rocky shore

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Abstract

Structural modification of the environment by physical ecosystem engineers often allows for the occurrence of species that are not able to establish in unengineered habitats, thus leading to increased species richness at the landscape-level (i.e., areas encompassing engineered and unengineered habitats). Unlike previous studies that focused on the contribution of a single engineering species to landscape-level species richness, this study evaluates whether co-occurring engineers—i.e., intertidal mussels (primarily Perumytilus purpuratus) and rock boring bivalves (Lithophaga patagonica)—contribute to landscape-level species richness in a similar or complementary way. Our results show that both mussel and L. patagonica patches harbor a substantial number of invertebrate species in addition to those occurring in the unenegineered rock substrate. However, the distinctive habitat patches created by each engineer add exclusive subsets of species to the study area, which implies that mussel and L. patagonica patches contribute complementarily to overall species richness in our intertidal landscape. Here we postulate that complementary engineering effects on landscape-level species richness will occur when the engineered patches structurally differ from each other and, thus, vary in their relative ability to modulate two or more abiotic conditions and/or resources that prevent species establishment in the unengineered state. In spite of its inherently small spatial scale (500 m), our study highlights the potential for complementary engineering impacts at the larger scales that are usually implied in biodiversity conservation and management (tens to hundreds of kilometers) and outlines a simple conceptual basis and approach to address them.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Ignacio Chiesa, Brenda Doti, Guido Pastorino, Daniel Lauretta and José Fernández Alfaya for help in species identification; Carlos Sánchez Antelo and Sabrina Soria for field assistance; and the Quiroga family for housing during field trips. We also thank the staff at the municipal camping site in Puerto Pirámides. Two anonymous reviewers improved the manuscript with their comments. The research presented here was partly funded by CONICET grants (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; PIP 11220080100732 and 11220110100024) to MGP and JLG. MB and LPA were supported by CONICET doctoral fellowships. The invertebrates in the protected area of Puerto Pirámides were collected with permission from Chubut Province (Secretaría de Turismo y Áreas Protegidas). This is a contribution to the program of GrIETA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia” (MACN-CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    María Bagur & M. Gabriela Palomo

  2. Grupo de Investigación y Educación en Temas Ambientales (GrIETA), Mar del Plata, Argentina

    Jorge L. Gutiérrez & M. Gabriela Palomo

  3. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales and CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Mar del Plata, Argentina

    Jorge L. Gutiérrez

  4. Centro Nacional Patagónico (CENPAT-CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Argentina

    Lorena P. Arribas

Authors
  1. María Bagur
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  2. Jorge L. Gutiérrez
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  3. Lorena P. Arribas
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  4. M. Gabriela Palomo
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Correspondence to María Bagur.

Additional information

Communicated by Robert Cowie.

This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Coastal and marine biodiversity.

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Bagur, M., Gutiérrez, J.L., Arribas, L.P. et al. Complementary influences of co-occurring physical ecosystem engineers on species richness: insights from a Patagonian rocky shore. Biodivers Conserv 25, 2787–2802 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1203-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1203-x

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