The interplay between habitat structure and chemical contaminants on biotic responses of benthic organisms
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Ecotoxicology, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Toxicology
- Keywords
- chemical disturbance, pollution, artificial turfs, habitat complexity
- Copyright
- © 2016 Mayer Pinto et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. The interplay between habitat structure and chemical contaminants on biotic responses of benthic organisms. PeerJ PrePrints 4:e1783v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1783v1
Abstract
Habitat structure influences the diversity and distribution of organisms, potentially affecting their response to disturbances by either affecting their ‘susceptibility’ or through the provision of resources that can mitigate impacts of disturbances. Chemical disturbances due to contamination are associated with decreases in diversity and functioning of systems and are also likely to increase due to coastal urbanisation. Understanding how habitat structure interacts with contaminants is essential to predict and therefore manage such effects, minimising their consequences to marine systems. Here, we manipulated two structurally different habitats and exposed them to different types of contaminants. Effects of contamination and habitat structure interacted, affecting species richness. More complex experimental habitats were colonized by a greater diversity of organisms than the less complex habitats. These differences disappeared, however, when habitats were exposed to contaminants, suggesting that contaminants can override effects of habitats structure at small spatial scales. These results provide insight into the complex ways that habitat structure and contamination interact and the need to incorporate evidence of biotic responses from individual disturbances to multiple stressors. Such effects need to be taken into account when designing and planning management and conservation strategies to natural systems.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.