Abstract
Blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) are ecosystem engineers with strong effects on species diversity and abundances. Mussel beds appear to be declining in the Gulf of Maine, apparently due to climate change and predation by the invasive green crab, Carcinus maenas. As mussels die, they create a legacy of large expanses of shell biogenic structure. In Maine, USA, we used bottom traps to examine effects of four bottom cover types (i.e., live mussels, whole shells, fragmented shells, bare sediment) and wind condition (i.e., days with high, intermediate, and low values) on flow-related ecosystem processes. Significant differences in transport of sediment, meiofauna, and macrofauna were found among cover types and days, with no significant interaction between the two factors. Wind condition had positive effects on transport. Shell hash, especially fragmented shells, had negative effects, possibly because it acted as bed armor to reduce wind-generated erosion and resuspension. Copepods had the greatest mobility and shortest turnover times (0.15 d), followed by nematodes (1.96 d) and the macrofauna dominant, Tubificoides benedeni (2.35 d). Shell legacy effects may play an important role in soft-bottom system responses to wind-generated ecosystem processes, particularly in collapsed mussel beds, with implications for recolonization, connectivity, and the creation and maintenance of spatial pattern.
Highlights
Blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) are ecosystem engineers with strong effects on sediment, species composition, and abundances of meiofauna and macrofauna compared to soft-bottoms without mussels [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
Cover types did not matter as much as days, where the highest total sediment flux rate and organic content were on the days with strongest wind condition ranks
PERMANOVA revealed no significant differences in the structure of the
Summary
Blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) are ecosystem engineers with strong effects on sediment, species composition, and abundances of meiofauna and macrofauna compared to soft-bottoms without mussels [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Rates sediment flux the and wind blows when water coverstend the site [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47] Howcorrelated does this wind-forcing interactand withthe live mussel, animal transport in bedload to be positively with wind velocity fetch over whole fragmented shell,water and bare sediment cover types mussel. The we discovered no significant interaction between wind condition and bottom cover type, suggesting results provide evidence that changes in biogenic structure after mussel bed collapse have significant that they acted independently during the short time course of this investigation. The results provide impacts on transport of sediment and animals in soft-bottom systems in the Gulf of Maine and evidence that changes in biogenic structure after mussel bed collapse have significant impacts on elsewhere. Transport of sediment and animals in soft-bottom systems in the Gulf of Maine and elsewhere
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