Abstract
Data on species diversity and structure in coralligenous outcrops dominated by Corallium rubrum are lacking. A hierarchical sampling including 3 localities and 9 sites covering more than 400 km of rocky coasts in NW Mediterranean, was designed to characterize the spatial variability of structure, composition and diversity of perennial species inhabiting coralligenous outcrops. We estimated species/taxa composition and abundance. Eight morpho-functional groups were defined according to their life span and growth to characterize the structural complexity of the outcrops. The species composition and structural complexity differed consistently across all spatial scales considered. The lowest and the highest variability were found among localities (separated by >200 km) and within sites (separated by 1–5 km), respectively supporting differences in diversity indices. The morpho-functional groups displayed a consistent spatial arrangement in terms of the number, size and shape of patches across study sites. These results contribute to filling the gap on the understanding of assemblage composition and structure and to build baselines to assess the response of this of this highly threatened habitat to anthropogenic disturbances.
Highlights
Fine-scale and high-resolution knowledge on the variability of the structure and functioning of key habitats over a wide range of spatial scales is important for effective management and conservation of coastal marine habitats[1,2,3,4]
Red coral populations are highly threatened by harvesting and by the dramatic effects of mortality events putatively related to climate change
The present study provides the first community level, a base-line data on diversity, structure and composition patterns of coralligenous outcrops dominated by red coral
Summary
Fine-scale and high-resolution knowledge on the variability of the structure and functioning of key habitats over a wide range of spatial scales is important for effective management and conservation of coastal marine habitats[1,2,3,4]. C. rubrum is a slow-growing, long-lived species, and plays a key role as a habitat forming species and in the functioning of coralligenous habitats mainly due to its trophic activity, biomass and perennial biogenic structure as other Mediterranean gorgonian species[10,24,27] Despite this essential role, few studies deal with the characterization and variability, at high resolution of the whole assemblage and over relevant temporal and regional scales (but see refs 28 and 29). Few studies addressing coralligenous assemblages have extended their scope to larger spatial scales of up to >4 00 km of coastline[30], and the majority focuses on the phytobenthic component[31] Due to this lack of baseline data, the structure of coralligenous outcrops is poorly understood, preventing a proper assessment of its current state of biodiversity and the potential impacts of harvesting, and other disturbances related to global change, on red coral assemblages These components are intended to give future assessments on the conservation status, as well as guide the development of a monitoring scheme for the rich coralligenous assemblages
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