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Do interrelationships among benthic components mirror disturbance levels?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2011

P. Malea ,
T. Kevrekidis ,
N. Papageorgiou ,
A. Mogias  and
C. Arvanitidis
P. Malea
Affiliation:
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Biology, Institute of Botany, PO Box 109, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
T. Kevrekidis
Affiliation:
Democritus University of Thrace, Laboratory of Environmental Research and Education, 68100, Alexandroupolis, Greece
N. Papageorgiou
Affiliation:
Biology Department, University of Crete, Vasilika Vouton, 71409 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
A. Mogias
Affiliation:
Democritus University of Thrace, Laboratory of Environmental Research and Education, 68100, Alexandroupolis, Greece
C. Arvanitidis*
Affiliation:
Institute of Marine Biology and Genetics, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Former American Base of Gournes, Heraklion, 71003, Crete, Greece
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: C. Arvanitidis, Institute of Marine Biology and Genetics, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Former American Base of Gournes, Heraklion, 71003, Crete, Greece email: arvanitidis@her.hcmr.gr
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Abstract

The hypothesis tested in this study is that changes in benthic ecosystem components interrelationships may mirror the degree of environmental stress in the Mediterranean coastal lagoons. Multivariate matrices deriving from four benthic components (macrophytes, zoobenthos, epibenthic decapods and demersal fish) from four lagoonal stations along a well-defined disturbance gradient were compared by means of second-stage non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS). The resulting inter-matrix distances were used as a proxy for the identification of the degree of disturbance. The approach followed is novel in that it uses information from higher levels of the biological organization by taking into account more than a single benthic component, thus representing broad categories of functional groups. The second-stage MDS plots depict differences between inter-component distances in the sampling stations according to the degree of disturbance they experience and the BIOENV analysis demonstrates that certain components are correlated with the environmental variables at a higher degree in the most disturbed stations.

Keywords

benthic componentsmacrophyteszoobenthosdecapodsdemersal fishinterrelationssecond-stage non-metric multidimensional scalinglagoonsenvironmental stressMediterranean
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 92 , Issue 2 , March 2012 , pp. 235 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2011

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