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Benthic diatom community composition in three regions of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

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Abstract

Despite their ecological importance, very little is known about the taxonomy and ecology of benthic diatoms in coral-reef ecosystems. Diatom densities and community compositions were investigated in three distinct regions of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR): (a) Wet Tropics (WT), (b) Princess Charlotte Bay (PCB), and (c) the Outer Shelf (OS). About 209 taxa were observed in the GBR sediments studied, with an average abundance of 2.55 × 106 cells ml−1 in the upper 1 cm of sediment. Total diatom abundances were about twice as high in inshore reefs of PCB and WT compared with OS reefs. A redundancy analysis (RDA) of diatom composition clearly grouped the three regions separately but showed little influence of grain size, nitrogen and organic carbon content of the sediments. The only distinct correlates were inorganic carbon and the distance to the mainland associated with OS communities. Analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) of diatom community composition revealed significant differences between all three regions. Indicator values showed that most highly abundant taxa occurred in all regions. However, several taxa were clearly identified as characteristic of particular regions. It is hypothesised that variations in nutrient and light availability are the most likely explanation for the observed differences in community composition.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Thomas Hübener for his support. Many thanks to the crew of the RV Lady Basten, Tim Hyndes and Tim Philipps for their support in the field, to Tim Cooper for help with the statistical analyses and Kanae Kawashima for invaluable lab work. The authors wish to thank Dr. Leone Bielig for constructive comments on the manuscript. The study was funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for the GBR World Heritage Area (CRC Reef). K. Heimann acknowledges support for this work through an infrastructure grant for establishing the North Queensland Algal Identification/Culturing Facility (NQAIF) at James Cook University by the Australian Research Council (ARC), James Cook University (JCU) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) (LE0347105).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biodiversity Research, Department of Botany, University of Rostock, 18051, Rostock, Germany

    S. Gottschalk

  2. Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB No 3, Townsville, QLD, 4810, Australia

    S. Uthicke

  3. School of Marine and Tropical Biology, Townsville, QLD, 4811, Australia

    K. Heimann

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  1. S. Gottschalk
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Correspondence to S. Gottschalk.

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Communicated by Environment Editor R. van Woesik.

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Gottschalk, S., Uthicke, S. & Heimann, K. Benthic diatom community composition in three regions of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Coral Reefs 26, 345–357 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-007-0204-3

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