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Figure 1 in Community structure of benthic invertebrates in the Allipén River basin, North Patagonia, Araucania region (38º S, Chile)

Figure 1. Map of Allipen river, Tolten river basin, La Araucania Region Chile.Where S1 "Melipeuco" (265639 S, 5694829 W), S2: "Huerere" (758774 S- 5681448 W) and S3: "Las Hortensias" (746454 S; 5684086 W) represent the specific sampling stations, respectively.

Figure 2 in Community structure of benthic invertebrates in the Allipén River basin, North Patagonia, Araucania region (38º S, Chile)

Figure 2. Mean abundance (individuals/m2) the families more representative of benthic macroinvertebrates at site 1 Melipeuco in the Allipen river.

Fig 2 in Benthic macroinvertebrate communities in sites with native forest presence and absence in north Patagonia

Fig 2. Results of UPGMA for autumn (left) and winter (right) data of macroinvertebrates studied at Araucaria Region, Chile.

Fig 1 in Benthic macroinvertebrate communities in sites with native forest presence and absence in north Patagonia

Fig 1. Map with studied site in Araucania region, Chile (Mix-1, Mixed P1; Mix-2, Mixed P2; Co-1, CoigÜe P1; Co-2, CoigÜe P2; Co-3, CoigÜe P3).

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2021View details →

Turbidity shapes shallow Southwestern Atlantic benthic reef communities

Southwestern Atlantic reefs (Brazilian Province) occur along a broad latitudinal range (~5°N-27°S) and under varied environmental conditions. We provide here the database (reef benthic coverage) used by Santana et al. "Turbidity shapes shallow Southwestern Atlantic benthic reef communities" (Marine Environmental Research, in press). The data encompasses the four Brazilian oceanic islands and the coast (139 sites distributed between 0°55’N - 27°00’S) and is composed by a combination of location and depth.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

Recurring bleaching events disrupt the spatial properties of coral reef benthic communities across scales

Marine heatwaves are causing recurring coral bleaching events on tropical reefs that are driving ecosystem change. Yet little is known about how bleaching and subsequent coral mortality impacts the spatial properties of tropical seascapes, such as patterns of organism spatial clustering and heterogeneity across scales. Changes in these spatial properties can offer insight into ecosystem recovery potential following disturbance. Here we repeatedly quantified coral reef benthic spatial properties around the circumference of an uninhabited tropical island in the central Pacific over a 9-year period that included a minor and severe marine heatwave. Benthic communities showed increased biotic homogenisation following both minor and mass bleaching, becoming more taxonomically similar with less diverse intra-island community composition. Hard coral cover, which was highly spatially clustered around the island prior to bleaching, became less spatially clustered following minor bleaching and was indiscernible from a random distribution across all scales (100–2000 m) following mass bleaching. Interestingly, the reduced degree of hard coral cover spatial clustering was already evident by the onset of mass bleaching and before any dramatic wholesale loss in island-mean coral cover occurred. Reductions in hard coral spatial clustering may therefore offer an early indication of the ecosystem becoming degraded prior to mass coral mortality. In contrast, the spatial clustering of competitive fleshy macroalgae remained unchanged through both bleaching events, while crustose coralline algae and fleshy turf algae became more spatially clustered at larger scales (200–700 m) following mass bleaching. Overall, benthic community spatial patterning became less predictable following bleaching and was no longer reflective of gradients in long-term environmental drivers that typically structure these remote reefs. Our findings provide novel insights into how climate-driven marine heatwaves can impact the spatial properties of coral reef communities over multiple scales.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2023View details →

Structural and functional effects of global invasion pressure on benthic marine communities – patterns, challenges and priorities

Here we present datasets underlying the results of the study examining patterns of structural and functional community-level change in a range of well-studied marine ecosystems with documented histories of bioinvasion. For the purpose of the study, the authors identified six regions with extensive bay-scale datasets on native and non-indigenous benthic species assemblages, allowing paired comparisons in time (years to decades; retrospective datasets) or space (high vs. low proximity to hotspots of NIS introductions within a region; cross-sectional datasets) representing differences in bioinvasion pressure (Table 1). These sites were: 1) coastal waters of British Columbia, Canada (BC); 2) San Francisco Bay, USA (SF); 3) Ilha Grande Bay, Brazil (BR); 4) North-Eastern Baltic Sea, Estonia (BS); 5) estuaries of New South Wales, Australia (AU) and 6) Waitematā Harbour, New Zealand (NZ). These six regions are generally at mid- to higher-latitudes, with one low-latitude site (BR). The study sites encompassed surveys of benthic communities: fouling assemblages (BC and AU), subtidal reefs (BR and BS), and soft-sediment benthos (SF, BS, and NZ). Three data files are provided for each study region and include: <ul> <li>benthic community data (XX_species.csv)</li> <li>binary (0/1) biological trait information compiled for all species in the dataset (XX_traits.csv)</li> <li>additional explanatory variables considered for each study region - bioinvasion pressure and spatial variables (XX_env.csv)</li> </ul> For detailed information on datasets and methods description please refer to the original manuscript by Zaiko et al.

publicMar 2025View details →

Data from: Marine heatwaves amplify benthic community metabolism and solute flux in a seafloor heating experiment

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publicMar 2024View details →

Depth variation in benthic community response to repeated marine heatwaves on remote Central Indian Ocean reefs

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publicMar 2021View details →

Spatial distribution of benthic algae in the South China Sea: responses to gradually changing environmental factors and ecological impacts on coral communities

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publicJul 2023View details →

Recurring bleaching events disrupt the spatial properties of coral reef benthic communities across scales

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opencc-zeroJul 2020View details →

Data from: High rates of carbon and dinitrogen fixation suggest a critical role of benthic pioneer communities in the energy and nutrient dynamics of coral reefs

1. Following coral mortality in tropical reefs, pioneer communities dominated by filamentous and crustose algae efficiently colonize substrates previously occupied by coral tissue. This phenomenon is particularly common after mass coral mortality following prolonged bleaching events associated with marine heatwaves. 2. Pioneer communities play an important role for the biological succession and reorganization of reefs after disturbance. However, their significance for critical ecosystem functions previously mediated by corals, such as the efficient cycling of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) within the reef, remains uncertain. 3. We used 96 carbonate tiles to simulate the occurrence of bare substrates after disturbance in a coral reef of the central Red Sea. We measured rates of C and dinitrogen (N2) fixation of pioneer communities on these tiles monthly over an entire year. Coupled with elemental and stable isotope analyses, these measurements provide insights into macronutrient acquisition, export, and the influence of seasonality. 4. Pioneer communities exhibited high rates of C and N2 fixation within 4 – 8 weeks after the introduction of experimental bare substrates. Ranging from 13 to 25 μmol C cm−2 d−1 and 8 to 54 nmol N cm−2 d−1, respectively, C and N2 fixation rates were comparable to reported values for established Red Sea coral reefs. This similarity indicates that pioneer communities may quickly compensate for the loss of benthic productivity by corals. Notably, between 40 and 85% of fixed organic C was exported into the environment, constituting a vital source of energy for the coral reef food web. 5. Our findings suggest that benthic pioneer communities may play a crucial, yet overlooked role in the C and N dynamics of oligotrophic coral reefs by contributing to the input of new C and N after coral mortality. While not substituting other critical ecosystem functions provided by corals (e.g. structural habitat complexity and coastal protection), pioneer communities likely contribute to maintaining coral reef nutrient cycling through the accumulation of biomass and import of macronutrients following coral loss.

opencc-zeroDec 2017View details →

Data from: Scale‐dependent spatial patterns in benthic communities around a tropical island seascape

Understanding and predicting patterns of spatial organization across ecological communities is central to the field of landscape ecology, and a similar line of inquiry has begun to evolve sub‐tidally among seascape ecologists. Much of our current understanding of the processes driving marine community patterns, particularly in the tropics, has come from small‐scale, spatially‐discrete data that are often not representative of the broader seascape. Here we expand the spatial extent of seascape ecology studies and combine spatially‐expansive in situ digital imagery, oceanographic measurements, spatial statistics, and predictive modeling to test whether predictable patterns emerge between coral reef benthic competitors across scales in response to intra‐island gradients in physical drivers. We do this around the entire circumference of a remote, uninhabited island in the central Pacific (Jarvis Island) that lacks the confounding effects of direct human impacts. We show, for the first time, that competing benthic groups demonstrate predictable scaling patterns of organization, with positive autocorrelation in the cover of each group at scales < ~1 km. Moreover, we show how gradients in subsurface temperature and surface wave power drive spatially‐abrupt transition points in group dominance, explaining 48 – 84% of the overall variation in benthic cover around the island. Along the western coast, we documented ten times more sub‐surface cooling‐hours than any other part of the coastline, with events typically resulting in a drop of 1 – 4°C over a period of < 5 hr. These high frequency temperature fluctuations are indicative of upwelling induced by internal waves and here result in localized nitrogen enrichment (NO2 + NO3) that promotes hard coral dominance around 44% of the island's perimeter. Our findings show that, in the absence of confounding direct human impacts, the spatial organization of coral reef benthic competitors are predictable and somewhat bounded across the seascape by concurrent gradients in physical drivers.

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Biological and biogeochemical responses of benthic communities to marine heatwaves - BioHeat

The dataset presents data from a laboratory experiment exploring the effect of heatwaves of different intensities on benhic bioturbation, community excretion and biogeochemical cycling of solutes. We tested the effects of short-term, moderate and strong marine heatwaves on macrofauna bioturbation and associated solute fluxes as examples of ecosystem functioning. We also measured macrofaunal excretion rates to assess effects of temperature on macrofauna metabolism. For this experiment, we used unmanipulated sediment cores with natural animal communities collected from a muddy location at 32 m depth in the northern Baltic Sea. Despite the mechanistic effect of bioturbation remaining unchanged between the treatments, there were significant differences in oxygen consumption, solute fluxes and excretion. Biogeochemical and biological processes were boosted by the moderate heatwave, whereas biogeochemical cycling seemed to decrease under a strong heatwave.

opencc-zeroJun 2024View details →

Data from: Drivers of coastal benthic communities in a complex environmental setting

Analyzing the environmental factors affecting benthic communities in coastal areas is crucial for uncovering key factors that require conservation action. Here, we collected benthic and environmental (physical-chemical-historical and land-based) data for 433 transects in Taiwan. Using a k-means approach, five communities dominated by crustose coralline algae, turfs, stony corals, digitate, or bushy octocorals were first delineated. Conditional random forest models then identified physical, chemical, and land-based factors (e.g., light intensity, nitrite, and population density) relevant to community delineation and occurrence. Historical factors, including typhoons and temperature anomalies, had only little effect. The prevalent turf community correlated positively with chemical and land-based drivers, which suggests that anthropogenic impacts are causing a benthic homogenization. This mechanism may mask the effects of climate disturbances and regional differentiation of benthic assemblages. Consequently, management of nutrient enrichment and terrestrial runoff is urgently needed to improve community resilience in Taiwan amidst increasing challenges of climate change.

zenodo36/100

Data supplementing the article "Benthic diatom communities in an Alpine river impacted by waste water treatment effluents as revealed using DNA metabarcoding" , submitted to Frontiers in Microbiology

These data supplement the article"Benthic diatom communities in an Alpine river impacted by waste water treatment effluents as revealed using DNA metabarcoding" submitted to Frontiers in Microbiology:  The directory contains the following files: 64 PGM sequencing files (raw data, fastq files) - one file is provided for each sample by the sequencing platform with demultiplexed DNA reads (raw data prior any bioinformatics treatments). Sample_Names.xlsx - contains the information relative to the 64 samples including: the ID used in Mothur analyses (corresponding to the name of the fastq files), the sample name and the raw reads number for each sample.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2018View details →

opencc-zeroDec 2016View details →

Data from: Surrogate taxa and fossils as reliable proxies of spatial biodiversity patterns in marine benthic communities

Rigorous documentation of spatial heterogeneity (β-diversity) in present-day and preindustrial ecosystems is required to assess how marine communities respond to environmental and anthropogenic drivers. However, the overwhelming majority of contemporary and palaeontological assessments have centred on single higher taxa. To evaluate the validity of single taxa as community surrogates and palaeontological proxies, we compared macrobenthic communities and sympatric death assemblages at 52 localities in Onslow Bay (NC, USA). Compositional heterogeneity did not differ significantly across datasets based on live molluscs, live non-molluscs, and all live organisms. Death assemblages were less heterogeneous spatially, likely reflecting homogenization by time-averaging. Nevertheless, live and dead datasets were greater than 80% congruent in pairwise comparisons to the literature estimates of β-diversity in other marine ecosystems, yielded concordant bathymetric gradients, and produced nearly identical ordinations consistently delineating habitats. Congruent estimates from molluscs and non-molluscs suggest that single groups can serve as reliable community proxies. High spatial fidelity of death assemblages supports the emerging paradigm of Conservation Palaeobiology. Integrated analyses of ecological and palaeontological data based on surrogate taxa can quantify anthropogenic changes in marine ecosystems and advance our understanding of spatial and temporal aspects of biodiversity.

opencc-zeroApr 2023View details →

Data from: Bivalves from the Changhsingian (Upper Permian) Bellerophon Formation of the Dolomites (Italy): ancestors of the Lower Triassic post extinction benthic communities

The diverse shallow marine fossil assemblages from the Changhsingian Bellerophon Formation of the Dolomites record the late Palaeozoic marine life immediately before the end-Permian mass extinction. Here, based on the collection of c. 6500 bivalve specimens from different localities of the western Dolomites, we have taxonomically classified 26 species, including 10 new species, 3 new genera and 1 new family: Acharax frenademezi sp. nov., Bakevellia (Bakevellia) preromangica sp. nov., Edmondia hautmanni sp. nov., Etheripecten stuflesseri sp. nov., Ladinomya fosteri gen. et sp. nov., Lovaralucina covidi gen. et sp. nov., Palaeolima badiotica sp. nov., Promytilus merlai sp. nov., Tambanella? stetteneckensis sp. nov., Volsellina carinata sp. nov., Gardenapecten gen. nov., Ladinomyidae fam. nov. The occurrence of three Eumorphotis species with a different and superimposed stratigraphic distribution led us to propose an upper Permian 'lower Eumorphotis Zone' in contrast to the already known Lower Triassic Eumorphotis Zone which is consequently renamed as 'upper Eumorphotis Zone'. The 'lower Eumorphotis Zone' is divided, in ascending stratigraphic order, into E. praecurrens, E. striatocostata and E. lorigae subzones. A palaeoecological analysis of the bivalves contained in each sampled bed has allowed us to recognize 6 biofacies and 4 ecofacies, based on richness, dominance and ecological lifestyle. The bivalves from Bellerophon Formation inhabited lagoonal to nearshore environments affected by stressed conditions, mostly represented by high temperatures, high salinity, shallow water depths, low oxygen and high terrigenous input. The upper Bellerophon Fm is characterized by increasing fully marine conditions, although the occurrence of eurytopic taxa still suggests stressed marine conditions.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

Data from: Jeju Island: a sentinel for tracking ocean warming impacts on high-latitude benthic communities

As climate changes and anthropogenic pressures increase, marine ecosystem assembly and functioning are altered. High-latitude areas may provide opportunities for some tropical and subtropical organisms to survive. Yet, it is difficult to assess ongoing changes as ecological baselines are often missing. Here, we focus on the rapidly warming region of Jeju Island (South Korea), where thermal changes may have already triggered a poleward expansion of tropical and subtropical taxa and changes in community assembly. In 2012–2014, an island-wide quantitative description of its benthic communities (5 m and 15 m depths) was made, whereas patterns in seawater temperatures were examined from 1981 to 2020. The Jeju Island algal assemblage was dominated by the regionally endemic kelp, Ecklonia cava. Turf, encrusting coralline algae, alongside tropical, subtropical, and cosmopolitan macro-algae were also major components of the benthic community. Hermatypic coral cover was higher at the 15 m depth than 5 m depth. Increases in seawater temperatures were highly significant, with differences between the average annual SST [1980–2020] and annual SST reaching up to + 1.61 °C in only 40 yr. The thermal rise was more pronounced in winter than summer, and warming was further accompanied by a major decline in the number of days below 14 °C and 18 °C, which are considered critical thermal thresholds for hermatypic coral survival and reef development, respectively. Warming winter seawater temperatures could ultimately lead to a loss of seasonality and profound modifications of benthic assemblages. This study provides the necessary assessment of benthic community conditions at Jeju Island upon which the ongoing changes in the area can be explicitly demonstrated.