Competitive interactions in marine macroalgae: an analysis of the literature by boolean operators

Abstract

Marine macroalgae are the ecological basis in most of the marine environments. Light and space, added to nutrients rank among the most important elements influencing their distribution in the marine environment. Thus, this work aimed to identify and quantify the current and past literature on marine macroalgae competitive interactions and to address the main questions on the competitive patterns and their consequences for community structure, as well as to compare the competitive capacity among different macroalgal taxa. To do so, a quantitative literature search was performed based on papers published from 1934 to 2022, using the following combination of Boolean operators and keywords: “Seaweed OR macroalgae OR macroalga, AND ecolog *, AND competiti *”. A total of 173 articles were then compiled and selected. Our results compiled 124 different macroalgae genera with 546 studied taxa on competition processes. Among them, 38% of the compiled taxa belonged to Ochrophyta; 31% Rhodophyta and 18% Chlorophyta. The most-studied genera were Dictyota (6.8%), Sargassum (6.8%), Ulva (4.9%) and Lobophora (4.2%). Space was the most analyzed limiting factor (40.9%), followed by papers related to herbivory (26.1%), and lastly by competition over nutrients (15.1%). Our results, while attesting to the overarching complexity of competitive interactions, nevertheless allowed us to summarize the current knowledge regarding the patterns of competitive interactions on macroalgae, thus providing a useful synthesis for new perspectives on marine systems and research.