Benthic fauna in tropical tidal flats - a comparative perspective

Abstract

Tidal flats extend seaward from mangrove forests along many tropicalcoastlines. This contribution compiles the current knowledge on tropicaltidal flats with regard to species richness, abundance, spatial distributionpatterns and ecological roles taken by major organisms. Tidal flatsencompass a variety of soft-sediment habitats which are inhabited by aspecies-rich fauna. Species numbers are generally higher than in temperatetidal flats, but vary widely between tropical sites where they have not yetbeen fully assessed due to lack of research and taxonomic problems. Theassessment of biodiversity is further complicated by a low species frequency,the small size of macroinfaunal organisms and variations in the occurrence ofspecies between sites. Mean abundance ranges from 1000–2000individuals m-2, although figures ten times higher have beenrecorded in a mudflat in Costa Rica, and there are great variations in general.Individual densities of small-sized macrofauna are about ten times higher than for larger macrobenthos. A generalized zonation scheme for intertidaldistribution patterns of tropical tidal flat fauna is presented. The comparisonshows that the occurrence of macrofauna and especially of ecosystemengineers varies between sites, which can in turn explain the great variabilityin species abundance patterns recorded in benthic surveys of tidal flatswithin and between regions. This review revealed similarities as well asdifferences between various tropical tidal flats, which underlines the need for further comparative studies to be done, using the same methodology, before generalizations can be made.