Centre For Fish and Fisheries Research, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, South Street, Murdoch, Western Australia 6150, Australia.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2011 Mar;62(3):525-38. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2010.11.031. Epub 2010 Dec 30.
This study tested the hypothesis that, during recent years, the benthic macroinvertebrate fauna of the large basin of the Swan-Canning Estuary has changed in ways consistent with deteriorating environmental conditions in that estuary. Between 1986/7 and 2003/4, the compositions of that fauna altered markedly at the species and even family levels. Thus, the densities and number of species of molluscs, and especially of crustaceans, which are particularly susceptible to environmental stress, declined, while those of the more tolerant polychaetes increased. However, taxonomic distinctness declined consistently only at one of the four widely-spaced sampling sites and the dispersion of samples did not differ markedly between periods, indicating that the benthic fauna has not undergone such extreme changes as in the nearby Peel-Harvey Estuary. It is thus proposed that benthic macroinvertebrates can act as important indicators of the severity of environmental degradation in microtidal estuaries in regions where such perturbations are increasing.
本研究检验了一个假设，即在最近几年，斯旺-坎宁河口大盆地的底栖大型无脊椎动物区系发生了变化，这些变化与该河口环境条件的恶化相一致。在 1986/7 年至 2003/4 年期间，该动物群在物种甚至科的水平上发生了明显的变化。因此，对环境压力特别敏感的软体动物和甲壳类动物的密度和物种数量下降，而对环境压力更耐受的多毛类动物的数量增加。然而，只有在四个广泛分布的采样点中的一个点，分类独特性持续下降，并且两个时期的样品分散度没有明显差异，这表明底栖动物群没有像附近的皮尔-哈维河口那样经历如此极端的变化。因此，建议底栖大型无脊椎动物可以作为微潮汐河口环境退化严重程度的重要指标，在这些地区，这种干扰正在增加。
