Gerovasileiou Vasilis, Dimitriadis Charalampos, Arvanitidis Christos, Voultsiadou Eleni
Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
Department of Zoology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
PLoS One. 2017 Sep 6;12(9):e0183707. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0183707. eCollection 2017.
Hard substrates host globally a rich biodiversity, orders of magnitude higher in species number than that in surrounding soft substrates. Among them, marine caves support unique biodiversity and fragile communities but suffer lack of quantitative data on their structure and function, hindering their conservation status assessment. A first approach to the non-destructive ecological monitoring of marine caves by testing surrogates of structural and functional composition of sessile benthos was attempted in two species-rich Mediterranean marine caves. Photographic sampling was performed in different positions on the cave walls, across the horizontal axis, from the entrance inwards. Eighty-four taxa were identified and assigned to 6 biological traits and 32 modalities related to morphology, behavior and ecological affinities, with sponges being the dominant taxon in species richness and coverage. In quest of possible biological surrogates, we examined the spatial variability of the total community structure and function and separately the sponge community structure and function. The observed patterns of the above metrics were significantly correlated with the distance from the entrance, the small-scale variability and their interaction. A positive correlation was found between all examined pairs of those metrics, supporting that: (i) the developed functional approach could be used for the study of marine cave sessile communities, and (ii) sponges could be used as a surrogate taxon for the structural and functional study of these communities. The suggested method could be tested in other types of hard substrate habitats and in multiple locations of the Mediterranean waters, facilitating monitoring schemes and conservation actions.
硬质基质在全球范围内拥有丰富的生物多样性，其物种数量比周围的软质基质高出几个数量级。其中，海洋洞穴拥有独特的生物多样性和脆弱的群落，但缺乏关于其结构和功能的定量数据，这阻碍了对其保护状况的评估。在两个物种丰富的地中海海洋洞穴中，尝试了一种通过测试固着底栖生物结构和功能组成替代指标来对海洋洞穴进行非破坏性生态监测的初步方法。在洞穴壁上沿水平轴从入口向内的不同位置进行了摄影采样。共识别出84个分类单元，并将其归为6种生物学特征和32种与形态、行为及生态亲缘关系相关的形态类型，其中海绵是物种丰富度和覆盖率方面的优势分类单元。为了寻找可能的生物替代指标，我们研究了整个群落结构和功能的空间变异性，以及海绵群落结构和功能的空间变异性。上述指标所观察到的模式与距入口的距离、小尺度变异性及其相互作用显著相关。在所有这些指标的两两组合之间均发现了正相关，这支持了：（i）所开发的功能方法可用于研究海洋洞穴固着群落；（ii）海绵可作为这些群落结构和功能研究的替代分类单元。所建议的方法可在地中海海域的其他类型硬质基质栖息地以及多个地点进行测试，以促进监测方案和保护行动。
