Abstract
Habitat loss and fragmentation are leading causes of species extinctions in terrestrial, aquatic and marine systems. Along coastlines, natural habitats support high biodiversity and valuable ecosystem services but are often replaced with engineered structures for coastal protection or erosion control. We coupled high-resolution shoreline condition data with an eleven-year time series of fish community structure to examine how coastal protection structures impact community stability. Our analyses revealed that the most stable fish communities were nearest natural shorelines. Structurally complex engineered shorelines appeared to promote greater stability than simpler alternatives as communities nearest vertical walls, which are among the most prevalent structures, were most dissimilar from natural shorelines and had the lowest stability. We conclude that conserving and restoring natural habitats is essential for promoting ecological stability. However, in scenarios when natural habitats are not viable, engineered landscapes designed to mimic the complexity of natural habitats may provide similar ecological functions.
Highlights
Coastal habitats host diverse ecological communities and provide numerous ecosystem services that affect the health, security and quality of life of human societies [1,2]
The degradation or loss of natural habitats is a ubiquitous problem for urbanized coastal regions and results from a multitude of anthropogenic stressors such as shoreline development and pollution [3,4,5]
Analysis of the Euclidean distance in ordination space between mean annual fish community structure observed in all pairs of years revealed that temporal variability of fish communities was related to shoreline condition (Table 1)
Summary
Coastal habitats host diverse ecological communities and provide numerous ecosystem services that affect the health, security and quality of life of human societies [1,2]. The degradation or loss of natural habitats is a ubiquitous problem for urbanized coastal regions and results from a multitude of anthropogenic stressors such as shoreline development and pollution [3,4,5]. Conservation scientists have made substantial efforts to understand the consequences of habitat degradation or loss, and have shown that the potential for recovering lost ecosystem functions and services exists if natural habitats are sufficiently protected and restored [6]. In urbanized coastal settings, restoring natural landscapes to their historical baselines is unrealistic. Ecological Stability along Urban Coasts analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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