Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation?
Biological long-term data series in marine habitats are often used to identify anthropogenic impacts on the environment or climate induced regime shifts. However, particularly in transitional waters, environmental properties like water mass dynamics, salinity variability and the occurrence of oxygen...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:5036bbd58d034368a5a7c37b09d19026 2023-05-15T17:33:56+02:00 Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation? Michael Lothar Zettler René Friedland Mayya Gogina Alexander Darr 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175746 https://doaj.org/article/5036bbd58d034368a5a7c37b09d19026 EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5396916?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175746 https://doaj.org/article/5036bbd58d034368a5a7c37b09d19026 PLoS ONE, Vol 12, Iss 4, p e0175746 (2017) Medicine R Science Q article 2017 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175746 2022-12-31T03:28:27Z Biological long-term data series in marine habitats are often used to identify anthropogenic impacts on the environment or climate induced regime shifts. However, particularly in transitional waters, environmental properties like water mass dynamics, salinity variability and the occurrence of oxygen minima not necessarily caused by either human activities or climate change can attenuate or mask apparent signals. At first glance it very often seems impossible to interpret the strong fluctuations of e.g. abundances or species richness, since abiotic variables like salinity and oxygen content vary simultaneously as well as in apparently erratic ways. The long-term development of major macrozoobenthic parameters (abundance, biomass, species numbers) and derivative macrozoobenthic indices (Shannon diversity, Margalef, Pilou's evenness and Hurlbert) has been successfully interpreted and related to the long-term fluctuations of salinity and oxygen, incorporation of the North Atlantic Oscillation index (NAO index), relying on the statistical analysis of modelled and measured data during 35 years of observation at three stations in the south-western Baltic Sea. Our results suggest that even at a restricted spatial scale the benthic system does not appear to be tightly controlled by any single environmental driver and highlight the complexity of spatially varying temporal response. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles PLOS ONE 12 4 e0175746 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
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English |
topic |
Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Michael Lothar Zettler René Friedland Mayya Gogina Alexander Darr Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation? |
topic_facet |
Medicine R Science Q |
description |
Biological long-term data series in marine habitats are often used to identify anthropogenic impacts on the environment or climate induced regime shifts. However, particularly in transitional waters, environmental properties like water mass dynamics, salinity variability and the occurrence of oxygen minima not necessarily caused by either human activities or climate change can attenuate or mask apparent signals. At first glance it very often seems impossible to interpret the strong fluctuations of e.g. abundances or species richness, since abiotic variables like salinity and oxygen content vary simultaneously as well as in apparently erratic ways. The long-term development of major macrozoobenthic parameters (abundance, biomass, species numbers) and derivative macrozoobenthic indices (Shannon diversity, Margalef, Pilou's evenness and Hurlbert) has been successfully interpreted and related to the long-term fluctuations of salinity and oxygen, incorporation of the North Atlantic Oscillation index (NAO index), relying on the statistical analysis of modelled and measured data during 35 years of observation at three stations in the south-western Baltic Sea. Our results suggest that even at a restricted spatial scale the benthic system does not appear to be tightly controlled by any single environmental driver and highlight the complexity of spatially varying temporal response. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Michael Lothar Zettler René Friedland Mayya Gogina Alexander Darr |
author_facet |
Michael Lothar Zettler René Friedland Mayya Gogina Alexander Darr |
author_sort |
Michael Lothar Zettler |
title |
Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation? |
title_short |
Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation? |
title_full |
Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation? |
title_fullStr |
Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: Is interpretation more than speculation? |
title_sort |
variation in benthic long-term data of transitional waters: is interpretation more than speculation? |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175746 https://doaj.org/article/5036bbd58d034368a5a7c37b09d19026 |
genre |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 12, Iss 4, p e0175746 (2017) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5396916?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175746 https://doaj.org/article/5036bbd58d034368a5a7c37b09d19026 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175746 |
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PLOS ONE |
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12 |
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4 |
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e0175746 |
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1766132592248094720 |