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Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody

Ruth Callaway

Frontiers in Marine Science, Volume: 3

Swansea University Author: Ruth Callaway

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DOI (Published version): 10.3389/fmars.2016.00141

Abstract

Baseline surveys form the cornerstone of coastal impact studies where altered conditions, for example through new infrastructure development, are assessed against a temporal reference state. They are snapshots taken before construction. Due to scarcity of relevant data prior to baseline surveys long...

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Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
ISSN: 2296-7745
Published: Frontiers Media SA 2016
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa29562
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spelling 2016-09-27T16:38:47.5338781 v2 29562 2016-08-12 Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody 61d7fe28cbb286de1c9c43f45014c490 Ruth Callaway Ruth Callaway true false 2016-08-12 FGSEN Baseline surveys form the cornerstone of coastal impact studies where altered conditions, for example through new infrastructure development, are assessed against a temporal reference state. They are snapshots taken before construction. Due to scarcity of relevant data prior to baseline surveys long-term trends can often not be taken into account. Particularly in heavily modified waterbodies this would however be desirable to control for changes in anthropogenic use over time as well as natural ecological variation. Here, the benthic environment of an industrialized embayment was investigated (Swansea Bay, Wales, UK) where it is proposed to build a tidal lagoon that would generate marine renewable energy from the tidal range. Since robust long-term baseline data was not available, the value of unpublished historical benthos information from 1984 by a regional water company was assessed with the aim to improve certainty about the persistence of current benthic community patterns. A survey of 101 positions in 2014 identified spatially discrete benthic communities with areas of high and low diversity. Habitat characteristics including sediment properties and the proximity to a sewage outfall explained 17–35% of the variation in the community structure. Comparing the historical information from 1984 with 2014 revealed striking similarity in the benthic communities between those years, not just in their spatial distribution but also to a large extent in the species composition. The 30-year-old information confirmed spatial boundaries of discrete species associations and pinpointed a similar diversity hotspot. A group of five common species was found to be particularly persistent over time (Nucula nitidosa, Spisula elliptica, Spiophanes bombyx, Nephtys hombergii, Diastylis rathkei). According to the Infauna Quality Index (IQI) linked to the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) the average ecological status for 2014 was “moderate,” but 11 samples showing “poor” and “bad” status indicated possible negative impacts of dredge spoil disposal. Generally the study demonstrated the value of historical information for assessing the persistence of benthic community characteristics, while also highlighting shortcomings if raw data is lost and if the historical baseline does not reflect pristine ecological conditions. Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science 3 Frontiers Media SA 2296-7745 Swansea Bay, tidal lagoon, baseline, reference conditions, WFD 12 8 2016 2016-08-12 10.3389/fmars.2016.00141 COLLEGE NANME Science and Engineering - Faculty COLLEGE CODE FGSEN Swansea University 2016-09-27T16:38:47.5338781 2016-08-12T14:02:24.1928718 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Ruth Callaway 1 0029562-12082016140433.pdf 2016_Frontiers_Persistent_benthic_communities.pdf 2016-08-12T14:04:33.7370000 Output 1402762 application/pdf Version of Record true 2016-08-12T00:00:00.0000000 Released under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody
spellingShingle Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody
Ruth Callaway
title_short Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody
title_full Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody
title_fullStr Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody
title_full_unstemmed Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody
title_sort Historical Data Reveal 30-Year Persistence of Benthic Fauna Associations in Heaviy Modified Waterbody
author_id_str_mv 61d7fe28cbb286de1c9c43f45014c490
author_id_fullname_str_mv 61d7fe28cbb286de1c9c43f45014c490_***_Ruth Callaway
author Ruth Callaway
author2 Ruth Callaway
format Journal article
container_title Frontiers in Marine Science
container_volume 3
publishDate 2016
institution Swansea University
issn 2296-7745
doi_str_mv 10.3389/fmars.2016.00141
publisher Frontiers Media SA
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
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description Baseline surveys form the cornerstone of coastal impact studies where altered conditions, for example through new infrastructure development, are assessed against a temporal reference state. They are snapshots taken before construction. Due to scarcity of relevant data prior to baseline surveys long-term trends can often not be taken into account. Particularly in heavily modified waterbodies this would however be desirable to control for changes in anthropogenic use over time as well as natural ecological variation. Here, the benthic environment of an industrialized embayment was investigated (Swansea Bay, Wales, UK) where it is proposed to build a tidal lagoon that would generate marine renewable energy from the tidal range. Since robust long-term baseline data was not available, the value of unpublished historical benthos information from 1984 by a regional water company was assessed with the aim to improve certainty about the persistence of current benthic community patterns. A survey of 101 positions in 2014 identified spatially discrete benthic communities with areas of high and low diversity. Habitat characteristics including sediment properties and the proximity to a sewage outfall explained 17–35% of the variation in the community structure. Comparing the historical information from 1984 with 2014 revealed striking similarity in the benthic communities between those years, not just in their spatial distribution but also to a large extent in the species composition. The 30-year-old information confirmed spatial boundaries of discrete species associations and pinpointed a similar diversity hotspot. A group of five common species was found to be particularly persistent over time (Nucula nitidosa, Spisula elliptica, Spiophanes bombyx, Nephtys hombergii, Diastylis rathkei). According to the Infauna Quality Index (IQI) linked to the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) the average ecological status for 2014 was “moderate,” but 11 samples showing “poor” and “bad” status indicated possible negative impacts of dredge spoil disposal. Generally the study demonstrated the value of historical information for assessing the persistence of benthic community characteristics, while also highlighting shortcomings if raw data is lost and if the historical baseline does not reflect pristine ecological conditions.
published_date 2016-08-12T03:35:57Z
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