Navarro-Barranco Carlos, McNeill Caroline L, Widdicombe Claire E, Guerra-García Jose M, Widdicombe Stephen
Departamento de Biología (Zoología), Campus de Cantoblanco, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain; Laboratorio Biología Marina, Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla, Avenida Reina Mercedes 6, 41012, Sevilla, Spain.
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, West Hoe, PL1 3DH, Plymouth, UK.
Mar Environ Res. 2017 Aug;129:133-146. doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2017.04.013. Epub 2017 Apr 27.
The processes and patterns seen in coastal benthic communities can be strongly influenced by the overlying pelagic environmental conditions. Integrating long-term biological and environmental data (both benthic and pelagic) can give insight into the specific relationships between key benthic functional groups and natural temporal changes in the marine environment. The identity and abundance of amphipod species found at Station L4 (Western English Channel) were tracked for 7 years (2008-2014), whilst simultaneously, annual changes in phytoplankton biomass, water temperature, salinity and chlorophyll a concentration were also characterized. The main species were persistent and showed little variability along the study period. Overall, however, there were significant changes in the structure of the whole community between sampling times, highlighting the importance of less numerically-dominant species in driving temporal variability. Surprisingly, the current study did not detect a significant influence of the phytoplankton biomass on benthic amphipod dynamics. On the other hand, there was a clear and constant correlation between bottom water temperatures and amphipod abundance. This pattern is different from that observed in other detritivorous species at L4, highlighting the complexity of benthic-pelagic coupling and the high variability of the response to pelagic conditions among different groups. As a result of the biogeographic position of the Western English Channel, the key role of amphipods in benthic communities, the influence of the temperature in their populations dynamics, as well as the solid baseline provided here and in previous studies, the monitoring of long-term amphipod dynamics in the English Channel could be a valuable tool to evaluate the biological effect of climate change over marine benthic communities.
沿海底栖生物群落中所观察到的过程和模式会受到上层海洋环境条件的强烈影响。整合长期的生物和环境数据（包括底栖生物和海洋生物的数据）能够深入了解关键底栖生物功能群与海洋环境中自然时间变化之间的特定关系。对位于L4站（英吉利海峡西部）发现的端足类物种的种类和数量进行了为期7年（2008 - 2014年）的跟踪，同时还对浮游植物生物量、水温、盐度和叶绿素a浓度的年度变化进行了特征描述。主要物种具有持续性，并且在整个研究期间变化很小。然而，总体而言，两次采样期间整个群落的结构发生了显著变化，突出了数量上不占优势的物种在推动时间变异性方面的重要性。令人惊讶的是，当前研究未检测到浮游植物生物量对底栖端足类动物动态有显著影响。另一方面，底层水温与端足类动物数量之间存在明显且持续的相关性。这种模式与在L4站观察到的其他食碎屑物种的模式不同，突出了底栖 - 海洋耦合的复杂性以及不同群体对海洋条件反应的高度变异性。由于英吉利海峡西部的生物地理位置、端足类动物在底栖生物群落中的关键作用、温度对其种群动态的影响，以及本研究和先前研究提供的坚实基线，对英吉利海峡端足类动物动态进行长期监测可能是评估气候变化对海洋底栖生物群落生物学影响的宝贵工具。
