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Natural Disturbance Shapes Benthic Intertidal Macroinvertebrate Communities of High Latitude River Deltas

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Abstract

Unlike lower latitude coastlines, the estuarine nearshore zones of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea are icebound and frozen up to 9 months annually. This annual freezing event represents a dramatic physical disturbance to fauna living within intertidal sediments. The main objectives of this study were to describe the benthic communities of Beaufort Sea deltas, including temporal changes and trophic structure. Understanding benthic invertebrate communities provided a baseline for concurrent research on shorebird foraging ecology at these sites. We found that despite continuous year-to-year episodes of annual freezing, these estuarine deltas are populated by a range of invertebrates that represent both marine and freshwater assemblages. Freshwater organisms like Diptera and Oligochaeta not only survive this extreme event, but a marine invasion of infaunal organisms such as Amphipoda and Polychaeta rapidly recolonizes the delta mudflats following ice ablation. These delta sediments of sand, silt, and clay are fine in structure compared to sediments of other Beaufort Sea coastal intertidal habitats. The relatively depauperate invertebrate community that ultimately develops is composed of marine and freshwater benthic invertebrates. The composition of the infauna also reflects two strategies that make life on Beaufort Sea deltas possible: a migration of marine organisms from deeper lagoons to the intertidal and freshwater biota that survive the 9-month ice-covered period in frozen sediments. Stable isotopic analyses reveal that both infaunal assemblages assimilate marine and terrestrial sources of organic carbon. These results provide some of the first quantitative information on the infaunal food resources of shallow arctic estuarine systems and the long-term persistence of these invertebrate assemblages. Our data help explain the presence of large numbers of shorebirds in these habitats during the brief summer open-water period and their trophic importance to migrating waterfowl and nearshore populations of estuarine fishes that are the basis of subsistence lifestyles by native inhabitants of the Beaufort Sea coast.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the many dedicated field technicians who helped collect samples. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the Arctic Landscape Conservation Cooperative funded this study. We had logistical support from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Institute of Arctic Biology, and Manomet Conservation Sciences. We had lab support from the Mark Wipfli aquatic invertebrate lab, Alaska Stable Isotope Facility, University of Alaska Forestry Soil Sciences Lab, and the Alaska Monitoring and Assessment Program. We are also thankful to the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation for letting us conduct research on their lands and the people of the village of Kaktovik for their help and friendship. We thank Craig Davis, A. Norkko, and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful review of this manuscript. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology and Wildlife, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA

    Roy T. Churchwell

  2. Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Hilo, HI, 96720, USA

    Steve J. Kendall

  3. School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA

    Arny L. Blanchard

  4. Marine Science Institute, The University of Texas at Austin, Port Aransas, TX, 78373, USA

    Kenneth H. Dunton

  5. U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit, and Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA

    Abby N. Powell

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  1. Roy T. Churchwell
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Correspondence to Roy T. Churchwell or Abby N. Powell.

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Communicated by Alf Norkko

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Churchwell, R.T., Kendall, S.J., Blanchard, A.L. et al. Natural Disturbance Shapes Benthic Intertidal Macroinvertebrate Communities of High Latitude River Deltas. Estuaries and Coasts 39, 798–814 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-015-0028-2

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