Ecological quality assessement of marinas: An integrative approach combining biological and environmental data
| Autor: | José A. Cuesta, Alejandro Fernández-Romero, Rafael Espinar, Emilio Morales, Macarena Ros, Juan Moreira, Marta Florido, Carlos Navarro-Barranco, José M. Guerra-García, Francisco Sedano, Inmaculada Giráldez, Gemma Martínez-Laiz |
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| Přispěvatelé: | Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España), European Commission |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Environmental Engineering
Biological pollution Meiobenthos Meiofauna Taxonomic resolution 0208 environmental biotechnology Environmental pollution 02 engineering and technology 010501 environmental sciences Management Monitoring Policy and Law 01 natural sciences Abundance (ecology) Metals Heavy Animals Waste Management and Disposal Ecosystem 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Marinas Ecology Ecological assessment General Medicine Biodiversity Biota Invertebrates 020801 environmental engineering Ecological indicator Environmental science Species richness Macrofauna Soft bottoms Global biodiversity Environmental Monitoring |
| Zdroj: | Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC instname |
| Popis: | The importance of marinas as infrastructures for recreational boating is increasing substantially. However, information on their soft-bottom benthic communities, a key tool for managing programmes, is still scarce. We combined environment features with macro- and meiofaunal soft-bottom community information for assessing the ecological status of marinas with an integrative approach. To address this issue, we focused on eight marinas of the Southern Iberian Peninsula. Macro- and meiofauna data revealed high benthic heterogeneity at a spatial scale. The environmental variables which correlated best with macrofauna were mainly phosphorus, granulometry, and total organic carbon, and secondarily important variables were faecal coliforms, the biocide Irgarol, and heavy metals; total hydrocarbon concentration was also significant for meiofauna. Annelida was the dominant phylum in terms of number of species (37%) and abundance (66%) and were better descriptors of the environmental conditions than Arthropoda and Mollusca. Although identification to the species level is desirable and mandatory for assessing biological pollution, significant differences among marinas and correlations between fauna and abiotic variables were already detected at the level of family and order. This implies that biota assessment at higher levels may still be useful in monitoring programmes limited by time and budget constraints. The major novelty of this study lies in the development of an integrative assessment method based on the following selected ecological indicators: Marinas Environmental Pollution Index (MEPI), Biocontamination Index (BCI), macrofaunal biotic indices (AMBI, M-AMBI, BENTIX, MEDOCC and BENFES), macrofaunal taxa richness and Shannon-Wiener's diversity, and nematode:copepod index. This approach was able to discriminate marinas of the Southern Iberian Peninsula based on their ecological status, which ranged from poor to good. The method can be useful to design standards for assigning “sustainable quality seals” to those marinas with better values of ecological indicators. Financial support for this study was provided by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Project CGL 2017-82739-P co-financed by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación -AEI- and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional - FEDER-). |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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