2024-03-29T15:07:36Zhttp://digital.csic.es/dspace-oai/requestoai:digital.csic.es:10261/1275292018-07-10T07:38:13Zcom_10261_88com_10261_8col_10261_341
Life after death: Shallow-water Mediterranean invertebrate communities associated to mammal bones
Tadoada, S.
Bas, Maria
Leiva, Carlos
Garriga, Mariona
Sardá, Rafael
Àvila, Conxita
Bacterial mats
Successional stages
Population dynamics
Opportunists
Ophryotrocha
Fecal pellets
15 páginas, 8 figuras, 2 tablas
Invertebrate and microbial marine communities associated with mammal bones
are interesting and poorly understood habitats, mainly known from studies on
deep-water whale remains. In order to characterize these communities in the
shallow-water Mediterranean, we present here the results of a pioneering experiment
using mammal bones. Minke whale, pig and cow bones were experimentally
deployed on three different background communities: rocky substrate,
soft-bottom and a Posidonia oceanica meadow. Bones were deployed for a year
at about 20 m depth and collected every 3 months, and the invertebrate fauna
colonizing the bones was identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level. As
expected, mammal bones showed remarkable differences when compared with
background communities. Within bones, four different clusters could be identi-
fied, primarily on the basis of the polychaete fauna, the most abundant and
diverse group in the survey. Clusters A1–A3 corresponded to high to moderately
altered successional stages composed by a fauna closer to that of anthropogenically
enriched shallow-water environments. These clusters were
characterized by the occurrence of the opportunist polychaetes Ophryotrocha
puerilis, Neanthes caudata (Cluster A1), Protodorvillea kefersteini (Cluster
A2) and Ophryotrocha alborana (Cluster A3). Cluster B was characterized by
the presence of the polychaete Oxydromus pallidus together with typical invertebrate
background fauna, which suggests that this community, after a year of
deployment, was closer to that found in natural conditions. As opposed to
similar shallow-water studies in other geographic areas, no occurrence of the
polychaete Osedax (commonly known as bone-eating worms) was reported
from our experiments. Apart from the study on the invertebrate communities,
insights about the population dynamics of three of the most abundant species
(O. puerilis, O. alborana, N. caudata) are given as well as remarks on a hypothetical
trophic network based on fecal pellet analysis.
Peer reviewed
2016
artículo
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
Marine Ecology : doi:10.1111/maec.12257 (2016)
0173-9565
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/127529
10.1111/maec.12257
en
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/maec.12257
Sí
none
Blackwell Publishing