BIOCONNECTENCE

Biodiversity and connectivity in the resilience of coastal marine communities

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Changes in diversity underpin the very nature and integrity of ecosystems, including how they function, deliver goods and services, and respond to disturbances. Yet understanding the underlying mechanisms of biodiversity change remains both one of the greatest challenges in ecological science and of fundamental importance to resource management and conservation. The key problem is the need to integrate the effects of different factors operating on different space and time scale on biodiversity. Biodiversity assessment and the maintenance of environmental quality are central to the management of coastal ecosystems, multi use and multi value systems. This research will focus on the study of meta communities, alpha and beta diversity as a way forward for ecology over regional spatial scales and relevance to resource management. The research will investigate the resilience of hard bottom marine benthic communities in relation to habitat complexity and degrees of connectivity. Appropriate experiments will be set up in order to evaluate the recovery of benthic communities after disturbance according to the different degree of connectivity between assemblages and taking into account the life history of the different benthic species. particular attention will be given to Marine Protected Areas and their role in preserving biodiversity'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Ecologists have studied biodiversity and resilience in communities of marine organisms along the rocky coast of Liguria in north-western Italy to determine how ecosystems function and respond to disturbance.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

A detailed understanding of the mechanisms behind changes in an ecosystem's biodiversity remains one of ecology's greatest challenges, but is crucial to successful coastal management and conservation.

The EU-funded project 'Biodiversity and connectivity in the resilience of coastal marine communities' (Bioconnectence) has studied the ability of bottom-dwelling marine organisms along the intertidal zone of a rocky coastline to recover from disturbances. The intertidal zone is the area exposed to the air at low tide but at high tide is underwater.

Researchers carried out a biodiversity survey of this zone along the Ligurian coast. Biodiversity can be described as the number and variety of animal and plant species within a region. The scientists also performed experiments across a number of sites to assess the role of ecosystems in influencing recovery rates, thereby assessing resilience.

A major review of ecological resilience was also undertaken in an attempt to marry the current differences between theory and practical research in the field and laboratory. The project's findings have provided important data on environmental conditions as well as the abundance and diversity of rocky shore plants and animals.

Project partners also collected data on little studied organisms, such as shrimp-like amphipods and syllid and nereid polychaete worms, which live among small 'turf' algae. These samples required painstaking identification and counting in the laboratory.

Algal turf dwelling fauna have contributed to increased estimates of species richness along rocky shores, compared to traditional visual sampling techniques. Bioconnectence's sampling strategy enabled patterns to be identified over a range of spatial scales, thereby gaining greater information on the spatial scale of biodiversity change along the coast.

Recognition of the importance of turf dwelling organisms in terms of biodiversity has encouraged fresh studies into the utilisation of primary food resources and overall food web structures. A food web is a community of organisms made up of several interrelated food chains. Scientists are particularly interested in the importance of detritus generated within the turf habitat.

Data from the Bioconnectence project will help policy-makers, scientists and conservationists improve coastal management and particularly designated 'Marine protected areas' and their role in preserving biodiversity.