RT journal article
T1 Beyond physical control: Macrofauna community diversity across sandy beaches and its relationship with secondary production
A1 Franco Rodil, Iván
A1 Lastra, Mariano
A2 Biología
K1 Ecosystem functioning
K1 Secondary production
K1 Shannon diversity
K1 Species richness
K1 Sea surface temperature
K1 β-diversity
AB Our understanding of the response of macrofauna diversity patterns to the variability of sandy beaches across spatial scales is limited. Defining relationships between diversity and ecosystem productivity is key to under-standing the ecological consequences of the current global rates of biodiversity loss. Here, we conducted a study across a large spatial gradient of 39 sandy beaches involving a wide range of environmental conditions and macrobenthic diversity to (1) explore macrofauna diversity patterns (2) estimate secondary production and (3) quantify how much of the variability in beach secondary production can be explained by macrofauna diversity. Beach macrofauna showed a clear increase in alpha-diversity across a beach geographic gradient linked to oceano-graphic conditions. Partitioning of beta-diversity implied the replacement of some species by others between bea-ches (i.e. spatial turnover) instead of a process of species loss (or gain) from beach to beach (i.e. nestedness). Variance partitioning analyses revealed that environmental and oceanographic variables (i.e., sea surface tem-perature, beach size, slope, and exposure rate), but also macrofauna diversity (i.e., species richness and Shannon index), largely determine beach secondary production. We showed that an increase in macrofauna diversity enhances beach secondary production, promoting energy transfer across trophic levels. The positive exponential relationship between macrofauna diversity and secondary production supports the idea that macrofauna plays an essential role in maintaining beaches as productive coastal ecosystems. Consequently, macrofauna diversity loss due to the ongoing shoreline recession and coastal occupation, exacerbated by climate change might cause exponential reductions in beach secondary production, which would affect the functioning of these sea-land interface areas.
PB ELSEVIER
SN 0272-7714
YR 2022
FD 2022-10
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/27573
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/27573
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 15-nov-2026