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Bird rookery nutrient over-enrichment as a potential accelerant of mangrove cay decline in Belize

Oecologia volume 197, pages 771–784 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Coastal eutrophication is an issue of serious global concern and although nutrient subsidies can enhance primary productivity of coastal wetlands, they can be detrimental to their long-term maintenance. By supplying nutrients to coastal ecosystems at levels comparable to intensive agriculture practices, roosting colonial waterbirds provide a natural experimental design to examine the impacts of anthropogenic nutrient enrichment in these systems. We tested the hypothesis that long-term nutrient enrichment from bird guano deposition is linked to declines in island size, which may subsequently decrease the stability and resilience of mangrove cays in Belize. We combined remote sensing analysis with field- and lab-based measurements of forest structure, sediment nutrients, and porewater nutrients on three pairs of rookery and control cays in northern, central, and southern Belize. Our results indicate that rookery cays are disappearing approximately 13 times faster than cays without seasonal or resident seabird populations. Rookery cays were associated with a significantly higher concentration of nitrogen (N) in mangrove leaves and greater aboveground biomass, suggesting that eutrophication from bird guano contributes to increased aboveground productivity. Sediments of rookery cays also had lower percentages of soil organic matter and total N and carbon (C) than control islands, which suggests that eutrophication accelerates organic matter decomposition resulting in lower total C stocks on rookery cays. Our results indicate that coastal eutrophication can reduce ecosystem stability by contributing to accelerated cay loss, with potential consequences for mangrove resilience to environmental variability under contemporary and future climatic scenarios.

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Availability of data and materials

The data were deposited in Mendeley Data under the https://doi.org/10.17632/ymzp3grrrp.1

Code availability

All software used and reference to specific code is provided in this manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) and Belize River Lodge for regional information. We would also like to thank the Belize Fisheries Department, Belize Forestry Department and the Mining Unit of the Ministry of Natural Resources for permits and unabridged access to mangrove cays. A special thanks to Z.R. Foltz and M.S. Jones for CCRE coordination. Thank you to N. Singh and M. Bell for laboratory assistance. Thank you to K.V. Curtis for sediment nutrient analysis and L. Linn for porewater analysis. This is Contribution No. 1053 of the Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems program, and contribution no. 1159 of the Smithsonian Marine Station.

Funding

This research was funded by The Summit Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    L. T. Simpson, M. K. Steinberg & J. A. Cherry

  2. Florida Oceanographic Society, 890 NE Ocean Blvd, Stuart, FL, 34996, USA

    L. T. Simpson

  3. Smithsonian Marine Station, Fort Pierce, FL, 34949, USA

    S. W. J. Canty & J. R. Cissell

  4. Working Land and Seascapes, Conservation Commons, Smithsonian Institution, District of Columbia, USA

    S. W. J. Canty

  5. Samford University, Birmingham, AL, 35229, USA

    J. R. Cissell

  6. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, 21037, USA

    I. C. Feller

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LTS, SWJC, JAC, MKS and ICF designed the study; LTS, SWJC, JRC and ICF performed the research; LTS and JRC analyzed the data; all authors contributed to the writing of the paper. JAC and ICF are co-senior authors.

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Communicated by Seth Newsome.

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Simpson, L.T., Canty, S.W.J., Cissell, J.R. et al. Bird rookery nutrient over-enrichment as a potential accelerant of mangrove cay decline in Belize. Oecologia 197, 771–784 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-05056-w

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Keywords

  • Rookeries
  • Nutrient enrichment
  • Cay disappearance
  • C stocks
  • Global climate change