Changes in four complementary facets of fish diversity in a tropical coastal lagoon after 18 years: a functional interpretation
| Autor: | David Mouillot, Julia Ramos Miranda, Domingo Hernández, Luis Amado Ayala Pérez, Thang Do Chi, Atahualpa Sosa Lopez |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2005 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Marine Ecology Progress Series. 304:1-13 |
| ISSN: | 1616-1599 0171-8630 |
| DOI: | 10.3354/meps304001 |
| Popis: | In a natural world increasingly trans- formed by human activities, the contemporary acceler- ation of biodiversity loss is now widely accepted. Coastal and estuarine environments are some of the most productive ecological systems on Earth and are able to provide many essential ecosystem goods and services, such as protein from fish or nutrient exports to adjacent marine ecosystems. Unfortunately, coastal lagoons are under increasing human pressure, and constraints on fish biodiversity are of major concern. Using fish samples from the Terminos coastal lagoon (southern Gulf of Mexico), we found a significant de- crease in taxonomic diversity over 18 yr while varia- tions in richness and evenness were mainly associated with seasonal and spatial variations. In other words, 2 randomly chosen individuals or 2 randomly chosen spe- cies within a fish assemblage were more likely to be closely related in the 1998 to 1999 period than in the 1980 to 1981 period. This result suggests a loss of func- tional diversity and a biotic homogenization in the lagoon fish community. At the same time, we observed a significant salinity increase between the 1980 to 1981 period and the 1998 to 1999 period, and the water tem- perature and transparency increased between the 2 annual periods. These results suggest a loss of estuar- ine conditions in the Terminos lagoon between the 1980 to 1981 and the 1998 to 1999 periods and a shift in hydrological conditions from hypohaline to euhaline/ hyperhaline status. In parallel, some fish families such as Mugilidae, Serranidae, Lobotidae, Achiridae, Belon- idae, Elopidae and Stromatide are better represented within the Terminos lagoon now than they were in the past. As a feedback, this loss of taxonomic diversity can lead to a loss of ecological responsiveness to environ- mental fluctuations and a loss of ecological functioning. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|