Steve I. Lonhart | USGS Science

USGS2016

Seasonal sediment dynamics shape temperate bedrock reef communities

Mobilized seafloor sediment can impact benthic reef communities through burial, scour, and turbidity. These processes are ubiquitous in coastal oceans and, through their influence on the survival, fitness, and interactions of species, can alter the structure and function of benthic communities. In northern Monterey Bay, California, USA, as much as 30% of the seafloor is buried or exposed seasonally, making this an ideal location to test how subtidal temperate rocky reef communities vary in the presence and absence of chronic sediment-based disturbances. Designated dynamic plots were naturally inundated by sediment in summer (50 to 100% cover) and swept clean in winter, whereas designated stable plots remained free of sediment during our study. Multivariate analyses indicated significant differences in the structure of sessile and mobile communities between dynamic and stable reef habitats. For sessile species, community structure in disturbed plots was less variable in space and time than in stable plots due to the maintenance of an early successional state. In contrast, community structure of mobile species varied more in disturbed plots than in stable plots, reflecting how mobile species distribute in response to sediment dynamics. Some species were found only in these disturbed areas, suggesting that the spatial mosaic of disturbance could increase regional diversity. We discuss how the relative ability of species to tolerate disturbance at different life history stages and their ability to colonize habitat translate into community-level differences among habitats, and how this response varies between mobile and sessile communities.

California↗

USGS2013

Burial and exhumation of temperate bedrock reefs as elucidated by repetitive high-resolution sea floor sonar surveys: Spatial patterns and impacts to species' richness and diversity

To understand how chronic sediment burial and scour contribute to variation in the structure of algal and invertebrate communities on temperate bedrock reefs, the dynamics of the substrate and communities were monitored at locations that experience sand inundation and adjacent areas that do not. Co-located benthic scuba-transect surveys and high-resolution swath-sonar surveys were completed on bedrock reefs on the inner shelf of northern Monterey Bay, CA, in early winter 2009, spring 2010, and summer 2010. Analysis of the sonar surveys demonstrates that during the 8 months over which the surveys were conducted, 19.6% of the study area was buried by sand while erosion resulted in the exposure of bedrock over 13.8% of the study area; the remainder underwent no change between the surveys. Substrate classifications from the benthic transect surveys correlated with classifications generated from the sonar surveys, demonstrating the capacity of high-resolution sonar surveys to detect burial of bedrock reefs by sediment. On bedrock habitat that underwent burial and exhumation, species' diversity and richness of rock-associated sessile and mobile organisms were 50–66% lower as compared to adjacent stable bedrock habitat. While intermediate levels of disturbance can increase the diversity and richness of communities, these findings demonstrate that burial and exhumation of bedrock habitat are sources of severe disturbance. We suggest that substrate dynamics must be considered when developing predictions of benthic community distributions based on sea floor imagery. These results highlight the need for predictive models of substrate dynamics and for a better understanding of how burial and exhumation shape benthic communities.

California↗