Abstract
The 16 Marine Protected Areas in the Seychelles Archipelago (Western Indian Ocean) are monitored by a wide range of scientific and conservation organizations, but these mainly focus on coral or fish. We have investigated variability in littoral biodiversity (with emphasis on molluscs, anomuran and brachyuran crustaceans, echinoderms and polyclad flatworms) across four spatial scales, including the largest, and previously unsurveyed, Silhouette Marine National Park. We recorded all fauna >4 mm within 1-m2 quadrats replicated at three tidal heights across transects and sites on the central granitic islands of Mahé and Silhouette and the outer Desroches coral cay. We sampled 438 quadrats and recorded 292 species of our study taxa, but accumulation curves did not reach asymptote. Most species were rare and encountered only once, although a few key species were highly abundant. Biodiversity was dominated by gastropod molluscs, which non-metric multidimensional scaling analyses showed to be a reasonable surrogate for overall faunal patterns. Non-metric multidimensional scaling showed that the fauna of each island were quite dissimilar, and after island, site explained the most variance in our generalised linear mixed models. The two least rich sites were adjacent to the only established hotel on Desroches but we cannot establish causality due to lack of a-priori data. However major enlargening of a hotel adjacent to one site on Silhouette should enable future scrutiny of tourism influences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barnes DKA, Barnes RSK, Smith DJ (2008a) A guide to Seychelles coastal life. Coral and coastal ecology of the Seychelles project. Earthwatch Institute, Oxford
Barnes RSK, Smith DJ, Barnes DKA, Gerlach J (2008b) Variation in the distribution of supralittoral vegetation around an atoll cay: Desroches (Amirante Islands, Seychelles). Atoll Res Bull 565
Bouchet P, Lozouet P, Maestrati P, Heros V (2002) Assessing the magnitude of species richness in tropical marine environments: exceptionally high numbers of molluscs at a new Caledonia site. Biol J Linn Soc 75:421–436
Clarke A, Griffiths H, Linse K, Barnes DKA, Crame A (2007) How well do we know the Antarctic marine fauna? A preliminary study of macroecological and biogeographic patterns in Southern Ocean gastropod and bivalve molluscs. Divers Distributions 13:620–632
Crame JA (2000) Evolution of taxonomic diversity gradients in the marine realm: evidence from the composition of recent bivalve fauna. Paleobiology 26:188–214
Engelhardt U (2004) Seychelles integrated marine protected area system plan. Report for Govt of Seychelles, Dept Environment, Victoria, pp 84
Gardiner JS (1907) Description of the expedition III. Part II. Mauritius to Seychelles. Trans Linn Soc Lond 2 12:111–175
Gerlach G, Gerlach R (2004) Species list of marine molluscs on Silhouette Island. Phelsuma 12:12–23
Graham NAJ, Wilson SK, Jenings S et al (2006) Dynamic fragility of oceanic coral reef ecosystems. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103:8425–8429
Graham NAJ, Wilson SK, Jenings S et al (2007) Lag effects in the impacts of mass coral bleaching on coral reef fish, fisheries and ecosystems. Conservation Biol 21:1291–1300
Hill MJ (2002) Biodiversity surveys and conservation potential of Inner Seychelles Islands. Atoll Res Bull 495:1–272
Lewis MS (1968) The morphology of the fringing coral reefs along the east coast of Mahé, Seychelles. J Geol 76:140–153
Mackie ASY, Oliver G, Darbyshire T, Mortimer K (2005) Shallow benthic invertebrates of the Seychelles Plateau: high diversity in a tropical oligotrophic environment. Phil Trans Roy Soc A 363:203–228
Novotny V, Basset Y (2000) Rare species in communities of tropical insect herbivores: pondering the mystery of singletons. Oikos 89:564–572
Richmond MD (2001) The marine biodiversity of the Western Indian Ocean and its biogeography. How much do we know? In: Richmond MD, Francis J (eds) Marine science development in Eastern Africa. Proc 20th Anniv Conf Mar Sci, Tanzania 28 June—1 July 2001. IMS/WIOMSA, Zanzibar, Tanzania, pp 241–262
Selin NI, Latypov YY, Malyutin AN, Bolshakova LN (1992) Species composition and abundance of corals and other invertebrates on the reefs of the Seychelles Islands. Atoll Res Bull 368:1–18
Sheppard CRC, Obura D (2005) Corals and reefs of Cosmoledo and Aldabra atolls: extent of damage, assemblage shifts and recovery following the severe damage of 1998. J Nat Hist 39:103–121
Sheppard CRC, Spalding M, Bradshaw C, Wilson S (2002) Erosion vs. recovery of coral reefs after 1998 El Niño: Chagos reefs, Indian Ocean. Ambio 31:40–48
Sheppard CRC, Dixon DJ, Gourlay M et al (2005) Coral mortality increases wave energy reaching shores protected by reef flats: examples from the Seychelles. J Estuarine Coast Shelf Sci 64:223–234
Stehli FG, Wells JW (1971) Diversity and age patterns in hermatypic corals. Syst Zool 20:115–126
Stoddart DR (1984) Biogeography and ecology of the Seychelles Islands. Junk, The Hague
Stoddart DR, Poore MED (1970) Geography and ecology of Desroches. Atoll Res Bull 136:155–165
Taylor JD (1968) Coral reef and associated invertebrate communities (mainly molluscan) around Mahé, Seychelles. Phil Trans Roy Soc B 254:129–196
UNEP (2005) Seychelles. Post-tsunami environmental assessment. UN Environment Programme, Geneva
van der Land J (1994) Oceanic reefs of the Seychelles. Netherlands Indian Ocean Programme 2:1–192
Wells FE, Allen GR (2005) Marine biodiversity on offshore coral reefs in north-western Australia. The Beagle 1:43–50
Westheide W, Hass-Cordes E (2001) Molecular taxonomy: description of a cryptic Petitia species (Polychaeta: Syllidae) from the island of Mahé (Seychelles, Indian Ocean) using RAPD markers and ITS2 sequences. J Zool Syst Evol Res 39:103–111
Wilkinson CR, Linden O, Cesar H et al (1999) Ecological and socioeconomic impacts of 1998 coral mortality in the Indian Ocean, An ENSO impact and warning of future changes. Ambio 28:188–196
Witman JD, Etter RJ, Smith F (2004) The relationship between regional and local species diversity in marine benthic communities: a global perspective. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:15664–15669
Zvyagintsev AY, Ivin VV (1992) Fouling communities of the Seychelles Islands. Atoll Res Bull 370:1–18
Acknowledgements
We are most grateful to the Mitsubishi Corporation and to the Earthwatch Institute (Europe) for financial and, in the case of Earthwatch, administrative support. We also thank the Seychelles Islands Development Company for the logistical support that they were able to provide, and the aid of their local staff on Desroches and Silhouette, and of the Seychelles Centre for Marine Research and Technology—Marine Parks Authority staff at Port Launay, was invaluable. We thank Daniel Smale for production of the data ordinations. We also thank both Justin and Ron Gerlach for use of the Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles laboratory and for help collecting data. For most welcome assistance in the identification of various species we are grateful to Eduard Heiman, Manuel Malaquias, David Reid, Bill Rudman and John Taylor (molluscs); Paul Clark, Peter Davie and Peter Ng (crabs), Peter Hogarth (hermit crabs); Yves Samyn and Dai Roberts (holothurians) and Kate Rawlinson (polyclad flatworms). The field assistance of a number of Earthwatch volunteers, School Teacher Fellows and African Capacity Building Fellows is gratefully acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Consortia
Corresponding author
Additional information
This work was undertaken as part of the Coral and Coastal Ecology of the Seychelles Research Programme
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the image is a link to a high resolution version.
ESM Plate 1
(JPEG 0.99 MB)
ESM
Littoral biodiversity across scales in the Seychelles, Indian Ocean (DOC 53 KB)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Barnes, D.K.A., Barnes, R.S.K., Smith, D.J. et al. Littoral biodiversity across scales in the Seychelles, Indian Ocean. Mar Biodiv 39, 109–119 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0010-y
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0010-y