Impacts and negative feedbacks in community recovery over eight years following removal of habitat-forming macroalgae

Abstract

The decline or loss of habitat-forming species has affected rocky shore marine communities worldwide. Many short-term studies have documented the initiation of cascading effects due to canopy losses of macroalgae, but relatively few studies have followed recovery dynamics over many years. Here, we show that the experimental removal of a dominant intertidal fucoid in southern New Zealand had numerous community effects up to 8years later. Even though the dominant fucoid returned to a nearly closed canopy, there remained many differences between disturbed and control communities. The disturbed treatments had lower plant density and biomass of the dominant fucoid, fewer species and more turfing coralline algae than controls. Plots with press disturbances were more affected than those with pulse disturbances. The negative feedback of turfing algae on the recovery of fucoid recruitment resulted in effects on cover and diversity in the wider community being evident after 8years. We discuss the feedbacks between fucoids, benthic turfing algae and community recovery and argue that if biodiversity impacts on marine rocky reefs are to be understood, the role of non-trophic interactions in structure, function and dynamics must be better delineated.