The intertidal benthic community of SW Atlantic as an environmental indicator of 50 years of human-mediated changes

ABSTRACT

The benthic communities dominated by the mussel Brachidontes rodriguezii (d’ Orbigny, 1846) are distributed in most of the rocky intertidal shores of temperate coastal areas of the SW Atlantic. The objective of this study was to review the changes that have placed in the intertidal zone of the mussel community over the past 50 years in Mar del Plata city (Buenos Aires Province, Argentina). From the original description (1966) of the community considered as a baseline, two anthropogenic agents were identified over time: (1) the introduction of non-indigenous species, and (2) the effect of the sewage pollution. Both agents impacted the benthic community, changing their vertical distribution, structure, and species composition. The belt barnacles formation in the upper intertidal zone and the reefs formed by the invader polychaete Boccardia proboscidea Hartman, 1940 were the main changes registered in the intertidal community. In the last 50 years, epilithic intertidal community results in a good indicator of anthropogenic pressures in the ecosystem of the SW Atlantic coastal area.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem engineer
• indicator species
• non-indigenous species
• benthic ecology
• ecosystem change

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Dra. Garaffo Griselda Valeria, Dra. Becherucci María Eugenia and Lic. Saracho Bottero María Andrea for their critical readings and for their contributions that greatly improved the quality of this manuscript. Figures 2, 4 and 7 were drawn by Rodolfo Elías. This work was supported by the National University of Mar del Plata under Grant EXA 768/16 from. Llanos, E. N. was supported by a Ph.D. Fellowship from Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) of Argentina.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Elizabeth Noemi Llanos http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0828-4672