Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat
The western Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing strong environmental changes as a consequence of ongoing regional warming. Glaciers in the area are retreating rapidly and increased sediment-laden meltwater runoff threatens the benthic biodiversity at shallow depths. We identified three sites with a...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4641631 2023-05-15T14:03:57+02:00 Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat Pasotti, Francesca Saravia, Leonardo Ariel De Troch, Marleen Tarantelli, Maria Soledad Sahade, Ricardo Vanreusel, Ann 2015-11-11 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641631/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26559062 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141742 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641631/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26559062 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141742 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited CC-BY Research Article Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141742 2015-11-29T01:27:44Z The western Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing strong environmental changes as a consequence of ongoing regional warming. Glaciers in the area are retreating rapidly and increased sediment-laden meltwater runoff threatens the benthic biodiversity at shallow depths. We identified three sites with a distinct glacier-retreat related history and different levels of glacial influence in the inner part of Potter Cove (King George Island, South Shetland Islands), a fjord-like embayment impacted since the 1950s by a tidewater glacier retreat. We compared the soft sediment meio- and macrofauna isotopic niche widths (δ13C and δ15N stable isotope analysis) at the three sites to investigate possible glacier retreat-related influences on benthic trophic interactions. The isotopic niches were locally shaped by the different degrees of glacier retreat-related disturbance within the Cove. Wider isotopic niche widths were found at the site that has become ice-free most recently, and narrower niches at the older ice-free sites. At an intermediate state of glacier retreat-related disturbance (e.g. via ice-growler scouring) species with different strategies could settle. The site at the earliest stage of post-retreat development was characterized by an assemblage with lower trophic redundancy. Generally, the isotopic niche widths increased with increasing size spectra of organisms within the community, excepting the youngest assemblage, where the pioneer colonizer meiofauna size class displayed the highest isotopic niche width. Meiofauna at all sites generally occupied positions in the isotopic space that suggested a detrital-pool food source and/or the presence of predatory taxa. In general ice scour and glacial impact appeared to play a two-fold role within the Cove: i) either stimulating trophic diversity by allowing continuous re-colonization of meiofaunal species or, ii) over time driving the benthic assemblages into a more compact trophic structure with increased connectedness and resource recycling. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island South Shetland Islands Tidewater PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island Potter Cove South Shetland Islands PLOS ONE 10 11 e0141742 |
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Research Article Pasotti, Francesca Saravia, Leonardo Ariel De Troch, Marleen Tarantelli, Maria Soledad Sahade, Ricardo Vanreusel, Ann Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
The western Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing strong environmental changes as a consequence of ongoing regional warming. Glaciers in the area are retreating rapidly and increased sediment-laden meltwater runoff threatens the benthic biodiversity at shallow depths. We identified three sites with a distinct glacier-retreat related history and different levels of glacial influence in the inner part of Potter Cove (King George Island, South Shetland Islands), a fjord-like embayment impacted since the 1950s by a tidewater glacier retreat. We compared the soft sediment meio- and macrofauna isotopic niche widths (δ13C and δ15N stable isotope analysis) at the three sites to investigate possible glacier retreat-related influences on benthic trophic interactions. The isotopic niches were locally shaped by the different degrees of glacier retreat-related disturbance within the Cove. Wider isotopic niche widths were found at the site that has become ice-free most recently, and narrower niches at the older ice-free sites. At an intermediate state of glacier retreat-related disturbance (e.g. via ice-growler scouring) species with different strategies could settle. The site at the earliest stage of post-retreat development was characterized by an assemblage with lower trophic redundancy. Generally, the isotopic niche widths increased with increasing size spectra of organisms within the community, excepting the youngest assemblage, where the pioneer colonizer meiofauna size class displayed the highest isotopic niche width. Meiofauna at all sites generally occupied positions in the isotopic space that suggested a detrital-pool food source and/or the presence of predatory taxa. In general ice scour and glacial impact appeared to play a two-fold role within the Cove: i) either stimulating trophic diversity by allowing continuous re-colonization of meiofaunal species or, ii) over time driving the benthic assemblages into a more compact trophic structure with increased connectedness and resource recycling. |
format |
Text |
author |
Pasotti, Francesca Saravia, Leonardo Ariel De Troch, Marleen Tarantelli, Maria Soledad Sahade, Ricardo Vanreusel, Ann |
author_facet |
Pasotti, Francesca Saravia, Leonardo Ariel De Troch, Marleen Tarantelli, Maria Soledad Sahade, Ricardo Vanreusel, Ann |
author_sort |
Pasotti, Francesca |
title |
Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat |
title_short |
Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat |
title_full |
Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat |
title_fullStr |
Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat |
title_full_unstemmed |
Benthic Trophic Interactions in an Antarctic Shallow Water Ecosystem Affected by Recent Glacier Retreat |
title_sort |
benthic trophic interactions in an antarctic shallow water ecosystem affected by recent glacier retreat |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641631/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26559062 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141742 |
geographic |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island Potter Cove South Shetland Islands |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island Potter Cove South Shetland Islands |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island South Shetland Islands Tidewater |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island South Shetland Islands Tidewater |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641631/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26559062 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141742 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141742 |
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PLOS ONE |
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10 |
container_issue |
11 |
container_start_page |
e0141742 |
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