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Biodiversity response to experimental induced hypoxic-anoxic conditions in seagrass sediments

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Abstract

The effects of induced hypoxic-anoxic conditions on the metazoan meiofaunal assemblages and nematode diversity were investigated with an in situ experiment in a Posidonia oceanica meadow. The experiment, of the duration of five months, was performed in three experimental sets of plots. Two of them were enriched with organic matter to induce anoxic conditions (1 set with sucrose and 1 set with sugar plus nutrients, i.e. nitrogen and phosphorus) whereas the last set of plots was kept undisturbed and used as Control. Metazoan meiofauna displayed a fast response to the induced anoxic conditions with an immediate reduction of the richness of taxa (only nematodes and copepods tolerated the hypoxic-anoxic conditions). Nematodes were the most tolerant organisms as their species richness did not change in hypoxic-anoxic conditions, but their species composition and trophic structure displayed significant changes. Some genera (Desmoscolex and Bolbolaimus) were replaced by other (Chromadorella, Sabatiera and Polysigma) more tolerant to the extreme conditions. No significant differences were observed in the Control plots, whereas in treated plots, selective deposit feeders and predators decreased significantly, being replaced by non-selective deposit feeders and epistrate feeders. These results indicate that, events causing a reduction in oxygen availability, can have an impact on the nematode beta-diversity and functional diversity with potential important implications on the benthic food web and functioning of the seagrass systems.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out within the frame of the project MedVeg (Q5RS-2001-02456). The authors thank Italian research grants FIRB 2001 (RBAU 012 KXA_009) funded by MIUR. This work is a contribution to the NoE MARBEF, financially supported by the EU. The authors are indebted to Antonio Pusceddu for support in the statistical analyses.

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  1. Department of Marine Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131, Ancona, Italy

    Cristina Gambi, Silvia Bianchelli & Roberto Danovaro

  2. Departament d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av.da Diagonal 645, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Marta Pérez & Olga Invers

  3. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Magallanes 2, Apdo. 22, 30740, San Pedro del Pinatar, Spain

    Joan Manuel Ruiz

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  1. Cristina Gambi
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Gambi, C., Bianchelli, S., Pérez, M. et al. Biodiversity response to experimental induced hypoxic-anoxic conditions in seagrass sediments. Biodivers Conserv 18, 33–54 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9433-1

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