Co-engineering in mussel beds. First results on north of Portugal

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Co-engineering in mussel beds. First results on north of Portugal Ana Catarina Torres1, 2*, Marcos Rubal1, 2, Isabel Sousa Pinto1, 2 and Puri Veiga1, 2 1 Departament of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal 2 Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research, Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal When spatial distribution of species overlaps, different kinds of interaction between organisms are possible (e.g. predation, competition). Sometimes, different species live on a very close relationship even as epibionts. This is the case of some macroalgal species which live as epiphytes above mussel beds. Specifically, in the intertidal zone of the north of Portugal, red algae of the genus Caulacanthus occasionally live above mussel beds of Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819. Both algae and mussels are recognized as ecosystem engineers, since these organisms, due to their morphology, activity and/or their life-style, provide habitats for many species. Although the role of mussels and algae as ecosystem engineers has often been analysed separately, few studies have still explored the effect of co-engineering due to these two groups of organisms together. The objective of our study is to explore how the presence of Caulacanthus spp. as co-engineer on M. galloprovincialis beds can affect their associated macrofauna. For this, two sites were selected from a rocky shore in the north of Portugal and at each site, five quadrat (10x10cm) replicates of mussels with and without alga were collected. Univariate analyses were done to explore differences between the abundance and diversity of the fauna, as well as the most abundant taxa. Moreover, a multivariate analysis considering the whole structure of assemblage was done. Results showed that the presence of Caulacanthus, as co-engineer on mussel beds, did not affect the total abundance and diversity of the associated fauna with M. galloprovincialis. However, the abundance of crustaceans and molluscs increased when the alga was present. Within crustaceans, amphipods were the taxa, which most likely benefited from the presence of the alga, since their abundance doubled when the algae is present. Finally, considering the entire assemblage structure, the multivariate analysis showed marginal significant differences between macrofauna on mussels with and without alga. Overall, we can conclude that Caulacanthus spp. as co-engineer of M. galloprovincialis, did not showed an important effect on mussels’ associated fauna, although molluscs and crustaceans seemed to be positively affected by the presence of this alga. Acknowledgements This research was developed under the Project No. 30181, co-financed by COMPETE 2020, Portugal 2020 and the European Union through the ERDF, and by FCT through national funds. PhD grant: SFRH/BD/114935/2016 by FCT Keywords: Co-engineer, Caulacanthus spp., mytilus galloprovincialis, Associated macrofauna, North of Portugal Conference: XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) , Braga, Portugal, 9 Sep - 12 Sep, 2019. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Ecology, Biodiversity and Vulnerable Ecosystems Citation: Torres A, Rubal M, Sousa Pinto I and Veiga P (2019). Co-engineering in mussel beds. First results on north of Portugal. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) . doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2019.08.00125 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 07 Jun 2019; Published Online: 27 Sep 2019. * Correspondence: Miss. Ana Catarina Torres, Departament of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, a_catarina_torres@hotmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. 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