A Quantitative Assessment of Organic Carbon Content as a Regional Sediment-Condition Indicator.

ABSTRACT: Organic carbon content of sediments, whether directly or indirectly assessed, has often been used as an indicator of marine benthic community condition both in site-specific and regional scale condition assessment studies. The conceptual framework underlying use of this indicator was developed based primarily on site-specific studies. A quantitative analysis of literature data on sediment organic matter impacts in marine systems was conducted to determine whether biotic metrics respond to abiotic indicators of sediment organic content, as predicted by conceptual models, at larger spatial scales. The ability to detect predicted decreases in community metrics (abundance, species richness, species diversity index H', biomass) varied among metrics, with best performance by species richness and

SUBMITTER: Nelson WG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8327999 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature