Do natural disturbances have significant effects on sandy beach macrofauna of Southeastern Brazil?

By

Costa, Leonardo Lopes
Machado, Phillipe Mota
Zalmon, Ilana Rosental

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019-7-31

Original Publication

Nature conservation

Volume

36

Pages

1--10

Subjects

benthic community , community structure , intertidal , morphodynamics , seasonality

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers 2012-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zoologia.36.e29814

 

Abstract

The role of morphodynamic features such as grain size, swash climate and wave action on the macrofauna of beaches are well-known. However, few studies have investigated natural disturbances as potential drivers of temporal community variations. In southeastern Brazil, we sampled the intertidal macrofauna of two sandy beaches to test whether seasonal disturbances as the frequency of storm wave events (SWE) and rainfall have significant influence on their composition and abundance. The macrofauna assemblage differed significantly between the rainy and the dry seasons, but rainfall was not the main driver of community changes, although both beaches are in the vicinity of extensive river plumes. Actually, SWE explained most macrofauna richness overtime, with positive effects. Our results point to the importance of learning more about the effects of poorly studied disturbances on macrofaunal communities, and based on them we strongly recommend including these seasonal phenomena when monitoring sandy beaches.