Biology Program, Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2010 Mar;60(3):363-75. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2009.11.002. Epub 2009 Dec 1.
In this study, we assessed importance of sediment-associated trace metals in structuring benthic macroinfaunal assemblages along multiple environmental gradients in chronically polluted salt marshes of the Arthur Kill - AK (New York, USA). More than 90% of benthic macroinfaunal communities at the northern AK sites consisted of a considerably large number of only a few polychaete and oligochaete species. Approximately 70% of among-site variances in abundance and biomass of benthic macroinfaunal communities was strongly associated with a few environmental variables; only sediment-associated mercury consistently contributed to a significant proportion of the explained variances in species composition along natural environmental gradients (e.g., salinity). Although sediment-associated copper, lead, and zinc were substantially elevated at some of the AK sites, their ecological impacts on benthic macroinfaunal communities appeared to be negligible. These findings suggest that cumulative metal-specific impacts may have played an important role in structuring benthic macroinfaunal communities in chronically polluted AK ecosystems.
在这项研究中，我们评估了沉积物中痕量金属在亚瑟克里克（美国纽约）长期污染的盐沼中沿多个环境梯度构建底栖大型无脊椎动物组合中的重要性。在北 AK 站点，超过 90%的底栖大型无脊椎动物群落由相当数量的少数几种多毛类和寡毛类物种组成。大约 70%的站点间丰度和生物量差异与少数环境变量密切相关；只有与沉积物有关的汞始终有助于解释沿自然环境梯度的物种组成的大部分可变性（例如盐度）。尽管一些 AK 站点的沉积物相关铜、铅和锌含量显著升高，但它们对底栖大型无脊椎动物群落的生态影响似乎可以忽略不计。这些发现表明，累积的特定金属影响可能在长期污染的 AK 生态系统中构建底栖大型无脊椎动物群落中发挥了重要作用。
