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The Response of Macrobenthic Communities to Environmental Variability in Tropical Coastal Waters

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Abstract

The relative contributions of spatial and temporal fluctuations are different in shaping natural communities in a tropical coastal/estuarine system. Understanding how coastal communities respond to these fluctuations is still equivocal, and thus, available data are rare. Here, multiple analytical approaches were used to identify key spatial and temporal factors, and to quantify their relative roles in shaping a macrobenthic community through space (contamination degree, physical parameters, and sediment characteristics) and time (climatic factors, season, and year). A dataset of eight sampling times was analyzed over a period of 2 years, in which macrobenthic species abundances were sampled. A total of 33 species were identified, including 18 bivalves, 5 gastropods, and 4 crustaceans. The other taxa were less diverse. The results show that there were no significant temporal changes of macrobenthic community structure, but spatial changes were significant and synchronized with environmental factors (i.e., sediment characteristics, water depth, and the distance from anthropogenic sources). This study demonstrates that spatial factors played a primary role in structuring of macrobenthic assemblages, whereas the influence of temporal factors appeared less across geographically distinct sites. Thus, temporal variation of a coastal macrobenthic community appears to be controlled by partly different processes at different scales.

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Acknowledgments

The authors’ gratitude goes to the support of the University Malaya High Impact Research (HIR) grant with project number UM.C/625/1/HIR/270.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Education and Health Promotion, Faculty of Health, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Seyedeh Belin Tavakoly Sany & Mohammad Tajfard

  2. Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Seyedeh Belin Tavakoly Sany & Mohammad Tajfard

  3. Institute of Biological Sciences University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Rosli Hashim

  4. Department of Modern Sciences and Technologies, School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Majid Rezayi

  5. School of the Environment, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, NSW, 2007, Australia

    Mohammad Azizur Rahman

  6. Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County, 3629 Queen Palm Drive, Tampa, FL, 33619-1309, USA

    David J. Karlen

Authors
  1. Seyedeh Belin Tavakoly Sany
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  2. Mohammad Tajfard
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  3. Rosli Hashim
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  4. Majid Rezayi
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  5. Mohammad Azizur Rahman
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  6. David J. Karlen
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Correspondence to Seyedeh Belin Tavakoly Sany.

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Communicated by Paul A. Montagna

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Tavakoly Sany, S.B., Tajfard, M., Hashim, R. et al. The Response of Macrobenthic Communities to Environmental Variability in Tropical Coastal Waters. Estuaries and Coasts 41, 1178–1192 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-017-0346-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-017-0346-7

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