Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here under a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license granted to WHOI. It is made available for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 208 (2018): 1-8, doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2018.04.037.
Description:
The number of anthropogenic substrata in the ocean – structures like oil rigs and offshore
renewable energy generators – is increasing. These structures provide hard-bottom habitat in
areas previously dominated by sand or mud, so they have the potential to alter species
distributions or serve as “stepping-stones” between other hard-bottom habitats. It is thus
important to understand what factors influence the composition and abundance of benthic fauna
recruiting at these sites. We examined recruitment to hard substrata (fouling panels) deployed on
sand at various distances from a large rocky reef (~60 m isobath) on the southern Oregon coast
in 2014 – 2015. Recruitment was dominated by the acorn barnacle Hesperibalanus hesperius.
For the majority of the study period in 2014, an anti-cyclonic eddy was present near the
deployment sites. However, anomalously high recruitment of H. hesperius during August – early
October 2014 coincided with dissipation of the eddy, slower bottom currents, and a positive
convergence index, suggesting that H. hesperius larvae from the adjacent area may have been
accumulated and retained near our study sites. Other sessile species, including hydroids and
bryozoans, recruited to the fouling panels in low abundances, and most of these species have
long-range dispersal and fast growth. Mobile invertebrates observed on the fouling panels
included gastropods and nudibranchs, most of which also have long-range dispersal and fast
growth, and are predators as adults. Thus, a community with two trophic levels assembled on the
fouling panels in a relatively short time period (〈12 weeks). None of the common hard-bottom
species from the adjacent rocky reef recruited to the panels, suggesting that there is a specialized
assemblage of species that can exploit hard-bottom habitats surrounded by sandy plains. Our
results raise many questions about the influences of dispersal and oceanographic conditions on
recruitment to hard substrata.
Description:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate
Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-0829517. YL is partially supported by the Dr. George
Grice Postdoctoral Scholarship from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with support from
NSF grant #1634965.
Keywords:
Community assembly
;
Rocky reef
;
Barnacle
;
Hesperibalanus hesperius
;
Bottom current
;
Convergence
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
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