![]() The polychaete Macroclymenella stewartensis (maldanid) is a head-down conveyor belt feeder that feeds at depth in the sediment and defecates at the surface. Adult Macomona liliana (tellinid bivalve) are ecosystem engineers that alter the sediment and its biogeochemical properties, playing an important role in community dynamics and benthic fluxes 9. To resolve this fundamental problem we focused on resolving the shifts in multiple ecosystem functions associated with two co-occurring and functionally important species that differentially influence a variety of sedimentary rates and processes 8. These areas of transition between contrasting patches of habitat can lead to interactive effects and emergent properties and therefore cannot be fully characterized by solely characterizing the adjacent patches 7.ĭue to the complexity of interactions involved in driving rates and processes in these heterogeneous marine sediments, empirical measurement is essential, but exceedingly challenging. When patches dominated by specific community types overlap, they create interface areas where communities and habitat features grade into one another, with largely unexplored consequences for ecological functioning 6. ![]() This heterogeneity is a powerful indicator of ecological health but confounds the simple up-scaling of ecosystem function measurements and thus the estimate of ecosystem services at scales most relevant to society 5. Such patchiness is often not as apparent as in other ecosystems where above ground structures define patches (e.g. These features interact with biology resulting in patchy spatial distributions of communities and ecosystem functions across multiple spatial scales. These soft sediment environments are complex ecosystems containing strong physical gradients that affect the distribution of species and physico-chemical conditions. ![]() The global distribution of tidal flats occupies at least 127,921 km 2 4. Nevertheless, recent reviews of the global value of estuarine and coastal ecosystems highlight these ecosystems still deliver many critical ecosystem services 1, 2, 3. Humanity has benefited from and evolved around coastal ecosystems but this has come at a cost of massive exploitation and intense deterioration of these systems. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the use of the biogenic features created by specific infaunal species at the sediment–water interface is a better predictor of ecosystem functioning than the density of the species per se, making this approach particularly appealing for large scale, mapping and monitoring studies.Ĭoastal habitats only occupy about 10% of the ocean’s surface area but make a disproportionate contribution to key earth-system processes 1. In our study the main drivers of ecosystem function were the abundance of two large but functionally very different species rather than biodiversity per se. Through a multi-site mensurative experiment, we show that transition areas drive non-linear effects on biogeochemical fluxes that have important implications for quantifying overall functioning. Spatial transition in abundance and the interaction of multiple factors that drive ecosystem function are complex processes that require real-world research. Understanding the ecological consequences of interactions between these species in transition zones where their habitats overlap is necessary in order to quantify their contribution to overall ecosystem functioning and to scale-up and generalize results. Benthic communities are usually arranged in patches dominated by key species with overlapping distributions. Among these habitats, tidal flats are an important component of many harbours and estuaries, but their deterioration due to human activities poses a serious threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function. Although they only occupy a relatively small portion of the surface of the planet, coastal habitats are some of the most productive and valued ecosystems in the world.
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