Dataset Information

Localised Effects of a Mega-Disturbance: Spatiotemporal Responses of Intertidal Sandy Shore Communities to the 2010 Chilean Earthquake.

ABSTRACT: Determining the effects of unpredictable disturbances on dynamic ecological systems is challenged by the paucity of appropriate temporal and spatial coverage of data. On 27 February 2010, an 8.8 Mw mega-earthquake and tsunami struck central Chile and caused coastal land-level changes, massive damage to coastal infrastructure, and widespread mortality of coastal organisms. Wave-exposed sandy beaches showed significant changes of species abundances from before to after the earthquake, but the highly dynamic biotic and abiotic conditions of these habitats make difficult to draw clear-cut conclusions from these patterns. Here, we analysed a beyond-BACI (Before-After Control-Impact) sampling design to test whether the effects of the Maule earthquake on sandy-shore species diversity, abundance, and structure were heterogeneous along the shore. Invertebrate species abundances were quantified before (i.e. February 2010) and after (i.e. March 2010, September 2010, and March 2011) the earthquake at three sandy shores randomly located within the earthquake rupture area and three sites within a "control" area located >400 km southward from epicentre. Immediately after the earthquake took place, the three sites located in the rupture area showed anomalous beach-profile uplifts that did not comply with the erosion (i.e. "negative" uplifts) that regularly occurs during late summer in the region. Species richness, abundance, and community structure significantly varied from before to after the strike, but these patterns of change varied among sites within both areas. Only the site with the strongest and persistent beach-profile uplift within the rupture area showed significant concomitant changes in species richness and community structure; after 13 months, this community showed a similar multivariate structure to the before-disturbance state. This site, in particular, was located in the section of the rupture area that received most of the impact of the after-earthquake tsunami. Therefore, our results suggest that the effects of the Maule mega-earthquake on the ecological communities were spatially heterogeneous and highly localised. We suggest that high mobility and other species' adaptations to the dynamic environmental conditions of sandy beaches might explain the comparatively high resilience of these assemblages. With this work we hope to motivate further experimental research on the role of individual- and population-level properties in the response of sandy-beach communities to interacting sources of disturbances.

SUBMITTER: Sepulveda RD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4934883 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Localised Effects of a Mega-Disturbance: Spatiotemporal Responses of Intertidal Sandy Shore Communities to the 2010 Chilean Earthquake.

Sepúlveda Roger D RD Valdivia Nelson N

PloS one 20160706 7

Determining the effects of unpredictable disturbances on dynamic ecological systems is challenged by the paucity of appropriate temporal and spatial coverage of data. On 27 February 2010, an 8.8 Mw mega-earthquake and tsunami struck central Chile and caused coastal land-level changes, massive damage to coastal infrastructure, and widespread mortality of coastal organisms. Wave-exposed sandy beaches showed significant changes of species abundances from before to after the earthquake, but the high ...[more]

PMID: 27383744

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Project description:Deciphering ecological effects of major catastrophic events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, storms and fires, requires rapid interdisciplinary efforts often hampered by a lack of pre-event data. Using results of intertidal surveys conducted shortly before and immediately after Chile's 2010 M(w) 8.8 earthquake along the entire rupture zone (ca. 34-38°S), we provide the first quantification of earthquake and tsunami effects on sandy beach ecosystems. Our study incorporated anthropogenic coastal development as a key design factor. Ecological responses of beach ecosystems were strongly affected by the magnitude of land-level change. Subsidence along the northern rupture segment combined with tsunami-associated disturbance and drowned beaches. In contrast, along the co-seismically uplifted southern rupture, beaches widened and flattened increasing habitat availability. Post-event changes in abundance and distribution of mobile intertidal invertebrates were not uniform, varying with land-level change, tsunami height and coastal development. On beaches where subsidence occurred, intertidal zones and their associated species disappeared. On some beaches, uplift of rocky sub-tidal substrate eliminated low intertidal sand beach habitat for ecologically important species. On others, unexpected interactions of uplift with man-made coastal armouring included restoration of upper and mid-intertidal habitat seaward of armouring followed by rapid colonization of mobile crustaceans typical of these zones formerly excluded by constraints imposed by the armouring structures. Responses of coastal ecosystems to major earthquakes appear to vary strongly with land-level change, the mobility of the biota and shore type. Our results show that interactions of extreme events with human-altered shorelines can produce surprising ecological outcomes, and suggest these complex responses to landscape alteration can leave lasting footprints in coastal ecosystems.

Project description:Functional diversity is intimately linked with community assembly processes, but its large-scale patterns of variation are often not well understood. Here, we investigated the spatiotemporal changes in multiple trait dimensions ("trait space") along vertical intertidal environmental stress gradients and across a landscape scale. We predicted that the range of the trait space covered by local assemblages (i.e., functional richness) and the dispersion in trait abundances (i.e., functional dispersion) should increase from high- to low-intertidal elevations, due to the decreasing influence of environmental filtering. The abundance of macrobenthic algae and invertebrates was estimated at four rocky shores spanning ca. 200 km of the coast over a 36-month period. Functional richness and dispersion were contrasted against matrix-swap models to remove any confounding effect of species richness on functional diversity. Random-slope models showed that functional richness and dispersion significantly increased from high- to low-intertidal heights, demonstrating that under harsh environmental conditions, the assemblages comprised similar abundances of functionally similar species (i.e., trait convergence), while that under milder conditions, the assemblages encompassed differing abundances of functionally dissimilar species (i.e., trait divergence). According to the Akaike information criteria, the relationship between local environmental stress and functional richness was persistent across sites and sampling times, while functional dispersion varied significantly. Environmental filtering therefore has persistent effects on the range of trait space covered by these assemblages, but context-dependent effects on the abundances of trait combinations within such range. Our results further suggest that natural and/or anthropogenic factors might have significant effects on the relative abundance of functional traits, despite that no trait addition or extinction is detected.

Dataset Information

Localised Effects of a Mega-Disturbance: Spatiotemporal Responses of Intertidal Sandy Shore Communities to the 2010 Chilean Earthquake.

Publications

Localised Effects of a Mega-Disturbance: Spatiotemporal Responses of Intertidal Sandy Shore Communities to the 2010 Chilean Earthquake.

Similar Datasets

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