Trophic functioning of a small, anthropogenically disturbed, tropical estuary.

Autor: Bella K; Department of Fisheries Resource Management, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), Kochi, India. Electronic address: kiranya.kikry@gmail.com., Sahadevan P; Department of Fisheries Resource Management, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), Kochi, India., Raghavan R; Department of Fisheries Resource Management, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), Kochi, India., Ramteke KK; ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education (CIFE), Andheri, Mumbai, India., Sreekanth GB; ICAR- Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute (CCARI), Old Goa, Goa, India.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Marine environmental research [Mar Environ Res] 2023 Nov; Vol. 192, pp. 106189. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Sep 22.
DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2023.106189
Abstrakt: A trophic model was constructed for the Poonthura Estuary, a small, anthropogenically impacted estuary along the south-western coast of India. An Ecopath with Ecosim based trophic modelling approach, based on observations made between 2016 and 2020, revealed that the Poonthura Estuary had a low total system throughput (3044.2 t km -2 year -1 ), low ascendancy (15%), high Finn's cycling index (17.9%), low primary production/total biomass (5.2 t km -2 year -1 ), high mean transfer efficiency (12.4%), and low eco-exergy (14,455.46 gm detritus equivalent m -2 ). These values indicated that the estuary is an immature, less organized, and unhealthy system. The evaluation of Ecological Network Analysis, and ecosystem health indices revealed that the ecological structure and functioning of the estuary are impaired to a large extent from multiple anthropogenic stressors. The Poonthura Estuary trophic model revealed the total primary production/respiration value as 0.46, indicative of the massive pollution that the system is subjected to, particularly from organic sources. Small benthic carnivores were the most important keystone groups recorded from the Poonthura Estuary, despite their low biomass. The comparison of ecological indices of Poonthura Estuary, with those recorded for other small estuaries from various geographical locations, suggested dissimilar trophic functioning and food web structures from estuaries with similar physical features. Our study is a pioneering step to reveal the ecosystem status and functioning of small, anthropogenically disturbed estuaries, besides offering theoretical and scientific basis for the management, supervision and restoration of the Poonthura Estuary as well as other small estuaries, around the world.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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