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1.
  • 1. Coastal sand dunes are widespread worldwide, including around the coasts of the British Isles and Europe, providing a wide range of functions some of which are recognized for their socio‐economic benefits.
  • 2. In some localities, their contribution to coastal defence and to tourism and regional character have been acknowledged in local plans, but this is far from ubiquitous.
  • 3. A rapid assessment was undertaken of the range of ecosystem services provided by coastal sand dune systems, using the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ecosystem services classification augmented with habitat‐ and locally‐appropriate additions.
  • 4. Sand dunes were shown to provide a wide range of provisioning, regulatory, cultural and supporting services, many of which remain substantially overlooked.
  • 5. Although the importance of coastal sand dune for a diversity of characteristic and often rare organisms from a variety of taxa has been addressed, many of the broader ecosystem services that these habitats provide to society have been overlooked. This suggests that coastal sand dune systems are neglected ecosystems of significant and often under‐appreciated societal value. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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  • 1. Ecological water reserves are part of the new water management philosophy in South Africa. The estuaries are threatened by excessive water abstraction from their rivers and the consequent reduction in freshwater input. This study was conducted to further improve our understanding of freshwater requirements in terms of nutrients for South African estuaries.
  • 2. The Gamtoos Estuary was sampled between November 1996 and November 1998 to determine its nutrient status and freshwater input rates. Furthermore, the possible existence of a distinct river‐estuarine interface (REI) in terms of nutrients has been investigated. Nutrients analysed included phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), particulate organic nitrogen (PON) as Kjieldahl nitrogen, total particulate phosphorus and total particulate carbon.
  • 3. The Gamtoos River was found not to be the ultimate source of nutrients to the estuary, but non‐point sources such as the seepage of fertilisers from adjacent agricultural fields determined to a great extent the nutrient status of the estuary.
  • 4. Results showed that it was not possible to identify a defined river‐estuarine interface region for all nutrients. Most were measured in higher concentrations in the lower salinity reaches (<17‰) where we observed the combined effect of inputs from the Gamtoos River, an agricultural drainage pipe, and fertilizer seepage from non‐point sources on nutrient concentration.
  • 5. Prolonged water withdrawal for human use impacts the continuous renewal of the nutrient pool so important to other South African estuaries with relative pristine catchment areas. However, reduced fresh water inputs could enhance eutrophication in polluted estuaries due to a decreased flushing potential of the estuary. In this case the Gamtoos Estuary has a freshwater requirement for freshets and floods to “clean” the estuary of accumulated nutrients and other organic material.
  • 6. This should be a consideration in further freshwater abstraction policies. Conservation issues arise since the Gamtoos Estuary is one of the few permanently open estuaries along the South African coast and serve in this study as an example and as a first attempt to relate freshwater requirements to nutrient dynamics in a South African context.
Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

4.
  • 1. Long‐term studies are necessary to describe effects of restoration efforts on plant communities and invasive species in North American fen communities. In 1986, 1999 and 2000, wetland plant communities and abiotic factors were sampled in two fens in Ohio that were actively managed as a state nature preserve since 1986. The correlation between plant species and environmental conditions was examined in 1986 to 2000, and changes in woody plant cover were measured on aerial photographs from 1938 to 1997 to analyse long‐term effects of management practices.
  • 2. 142 vascular plant species and 32 bryophyte taxa were found in these rich fens, including 13 rare (i.e. state‐listed as endangered, threatened or potentially threatened) and 14 alien species. TWINSPAN analyses identified nine plant community types, and species distributions were correlated with several abiotic factors (groundwater depth, pH, soil organic content, distance from wetland edge and depth of peat). Communities along the wetland edge in deep peat had higher richness, more woody species, more alien species and fewer rare species than communities in areas near sources of flowing groundwater with more marl and less peat.
  • 3. There was little change in species richness, evenness, and Shannon's diversity from 1986 to 2000. However, plant species assemblages changed during the study, and changes were different in unmanipulated transects compared with those where habitat managers removed invasive woody plants. An aerial photograph analysis indicated that woody plant cover increased by about 1% each year during 1938 to 1997 despite current management efforts to remove invasive trees and shrubs. Additional strategies should be directed toward reducing shrub encroachment and invasive species while promoting rare species.
Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

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  • 1. Rapid assessment protocols for determining and monitoring the status of any given coral reef are provided and include measuring: (a) standing stocks of functional indicator groups, (b) herbivore populations, (c) water‐column nutrient levels, (d) tissue C:N:P ratios, (e) algal physiological‐response assays, and (f) herbivory assays. These measurements can reveal quantitative tipping‐point levels beyond which resilience to undesirable phase shifts begins to become critically reduced. Universal tipping‐point approximations are reviewed for inorganic nutrients, and posited for the first time for herbivory.
  • 2. The relative roles of top‐down and bottom‐up controls in determining benthic community structure and the health of coral reefs are especially important management concerns. This paper specifically addresses the top‐down effects of herbivory and bottom‐up effects of nutrient enrichment on critical indicator groups, i.e. reef‐building corals, crustose coralline algae, dense turf algae and frondose macroalgae.
  • 3. A predominance of (a) massive corals and calcareous coralline algae relative to frondose macroalgae and algal turfs indicates a healthy spatially heterogeneous condition reflecting low nutrients and high herbivory. An abundance of (b) frondose macroalgae illustrates the least desirable condition of elevated nutrient levels and reduced herbivory, possibly reflecting pollution in concert with destructive herbivore fishing practices. High coverage of (c) coralline algae suggests healthy high herbivory levels, but problems with elevated nutrients that are inhibitory to some corals. Domination by (d) dense turf algae indicates desirably low nutrient levels, but an inadequate herbivory component.
  • 4. The fast growth and turnover rates of fleshy algae compared to other reef organisms highlight their value as early warning indicators of reef degradation.
  • 5. From a management perspective, levels of herbivory and nutrients rank among the most useful quantitative indicators of coral reef resilience; whereas, the degree of degradation and mortality are inferred from the above functional indicator groups of benthic primary producers.
Published in 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

7.
  • 1. Atlantic whitefish (Coregonus huntsmani) is a critically endangered species whose remaining habitat is restricted to three lakes near Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada. Other lakes in this region have been affected by a variety of environmental changes over the past 150 years (e.g. acidic deposition, eutrophication, and climatic changes); however, the extent of the impact on these remaining Atlantic whitefish lakes, and how the current limnological conditions compare with pre‐industrial conditions, is not known.
  • 2. Given the lack of long‐term monitoring data, palaeolimnological techniques were used to track environmental changes in these three lakes to infer historic limnological conditions.
  • 3. Results of this study show that acidic deposition has had no significant impact on these lakes (diatom‐inferred lakewater pH has changed little over time), nor has the nutrient status of these lakes changed as the sediment profiles have been consistently dominated by oligotrophic diatom taxa.
  • 4. Changes in the dominance of diatom assemblages since ~1850, from Aulacoseira distans to Cyclotella stelligera, are correlated with climatic warming (r = 0.48–0.89, P<0.05).
  • 5. Contrary to initial concerns, these only remaining habitats of the Atlantic whitefish have not yet been affected by acidic precipitation. However, other potential stressors, such as climatic warming and associated limnological changes, may now be affecting the habitat of this endangered species.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

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  1. Taxonomic and functional trajectories of benthic assemblages were studied in shallow soft-bottom sediments in the bay of Saint-Brieuc (Western English Channel). Changes were assessed at different spatial and temporal scales using a macrobenthic dataset based on 38 stations sampled in 1987 and 2019, coupled with data from one station sampled annually between 2005 and 2019 as part of the European Water Framework Directive monitoring programme.
  2. Taxonomic trajectories indicated 1) changes in the structure and distribution of benthic assemblages, 2) an homogenization of the assemblages, and 3) significant functional shifts.
  3. Fishing activities and nutrient enrichment are probably strong drivers of the observed changes, as suggested by the higher mortality rate of fragile, flexible, tubiculous and burrowing species, and the increase in the abundance of opportunistic species in the assemblages. Certain populations of macroinvertebrates seem jointly controlled by climate change and by the aforementioned local factors of disturbance.
  4. The Community Trajectory Analysis framework appears as a new and interesting method to track ecological changes in marine ecosystems by measuring change with respect to a baseline state, to help define ecological recovery (station returning to the initial ecological state) and departure (station presenting increased changes over time), and to analyse trajectory similarity.
  5. According to the degradation of habitat over time, we identify the need for the implementation of knowledge-based conservation strategies, especially within Natura 2000 sites.
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10.
  • 1. Current monitoring strategies of governmental organizations tend to be focused on relatively large flowing and standing waters, and until recently those polluted by point sources. Consequently areas of high conservation interest tend to be understudied, and defining reference conditions, as required by current legislation, is difficult to achieve.
  • 2. In order to address this imbalance, water samples have been collected and analysed once in each of four seasons during 2003 from 72 locations within a 100 km2 area of the oligotrophic River Spey catchment in NE Scotland. The sampling design included examples of running water (headwater streams and the main rivers) and standing water (lochs, lochans, pools, ditches, backwaters, bogs). Altitude ranged from 220 to 980 m and incorporated a climatic regime from cool temperate to sub‐alpine. Each sampling campaign targeted low‐flow conditions to evaluate steady‐state nutrient concentrations.
  • 3. Concentrations of the major soluble nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus demonstrated high spatial and temporal variability, with soluble organic and molybdate unreactive forms generally being dominant. Concentrations of ammonium‐N, nitrate‐N and soluble reactive phosphorus were extremely small, with 50% of samples falling below 8, 5 and 1 µg L?1, respectively, during spring and summer.
  • 4. Sampling sites were grouped either by water‐body type or by the properties of their immediate biophysical zone. Together these two groupings explained 33–38% of the variance in water chemistry. Certain changes were detectable across most habitats and biophysical zones.
  • 5. A decline in the concentration of nitrate that occurred in reaches downstream from certain headwater streams draining the mountain areas indicated the potential for its within‐stream utilization. Inorganic N dynamics differed between small streams and large rivers.
  • 6. Landscape‐scale patterns were recorded in spring and summer nutrient availability with inorganic N and P thresholds (arbitrarily defined) of 10 and 1 µg L?1, respectively.
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

11.
  • 1. Concentrations of major nutrients (NH4+‐N, NO3?‐N, NO2?‐N, HPO4?‐P, Si(OH)4‐Si) were measured, nutrient enrichment experiments (oxygen‐production bioassay) were conducted and phytoplankton were analysed at typical long‐line‐culture areas in Laizhou Bay and Sanggou Bay, northeastern China, from March 2001 to March 2002.
  • 2. Generally, much variation of nutrient indices was detected among the sampling stations, between the two bays and in different seasons: the concentration of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) fluctuated more violently and ranged much more widely in Sanggou Bay. N‐limitation was usually found in both bays, and the ranking of limiting potentials of major nutrients was N>Fe>P=Si in Laizhou Bay and N>P>Fe>Si in Sanggou Bay. Diatoms dominated the phytoplankton community in Sanggou Bay, but only dominated in eight months (with flagellates dominant in four months) in Laizhou Bay.
  • 3. Linear and nonparametric correlation analyses suggested that a large number of the nutrient and phytoplankton variables measured have intrinsic relationships within themselves. Much more complicated correlations between phytoplankton and nutrient indices were found in Laizhou Bay than in Sanggou Bay. This, together with the violent fluctuations of DIN concentrations, indicated a more fragile ecosystem stability in Sanggou Bay.
  • 4. The relatively exposed locations and less crowded settings of the rafts in the long‐line‐culture areas in Laizhou Bay allowed for a better water exchange, and the effect of aquaculture activity on the environment was not significant. Because of the intensity of aquaculture activities in Sanggou Bay, the biological, chemical and physical characteristics in the bay are greatly affected; a reduced cultivation density based on more comprehensive studies of carrying capacity of the bay is suggested.
Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

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  • 1. Marine protected areas (MPAs) range from multiple‐use areas (MUA) to absolute no‐take reserves (NTR). Despite their importance for fisheries management, there are few long‐term studies comparing benefits from different types of MPAs within the same region.
  • 2. Fish assemblages were monitored for five years (2001–2005) in the largest coral reefs in the South Atlantic (Abrolhos Bank, Brazil). Monitoring included one community‐based MUA, two NTRs (one established in 1983 and another in 2001), and one unprotected area. Benthic assemblages at these areas, as well as fish assemblages on unprotected deeper reefs (25–35 m), were monitored from 2003 onwards.
  • 3. Habitat characteristics strongly influenced fish assemblages' structure. This, together with the lack of data from before establishment of the MPAs, did not allow an unequivocal analysis of the effects of the MPAs.
  • 4. Biomass of commercially important fish, particularly small carnivores, was higher in the older NTR. Biomass of black grouper Mycteroperca bonaci increased by 30‐fold inside NTRs during the study period, while remaining consistently low elsewhere.
  • 5. A single herbivore species, the parrotfish Scarus trispinosus, dominated fish assemblages (28.3% of total biomass). Biomass of this species increased in 2002 on the younger NTR and on the MUA, soon after establishment of the former and banning of the parrotfish fishery in the latter. This increase was followed by a decline from 2003 onwards, after increased poaching and reopening of the parrotfish fishery.
  • 6. Fish biomass increased in 2002 across the entire region. This increase was stronger in sites closer to deeper reefs, where fish biomass was up to 30‐times higher than shallow reefs: movement of fish from deeper to shallower areas may have played a role.
  • 7. The effective use of MPAs in the Abrolhos Bank is still dependent on adequate enforcement and the protection of critical habitats such as deep reefs and mangroves.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

15.
  • 1. Port Davey and associated Bathurst Harbour in south‐western Tasmania represent one of the world's most anomalous estuarine systems owing to an unusual combination of environmental factors. These include: (i) large uninhabited catchment protected as a National Park; (ii) ria geomorphology but with fjord characteristics that include a shallow entrance and deep 12‐km long channel connecting an almost land‐locked harbour to the sea; (iii) high rainfall and riverine input that generate strongly‐stratified estuarine conditions, with a low‐salinity surface layer and marine bottom water; (iv) a deeply tannin‐stained surface layer that blocks light penetration to depth; (v) very low levels of nutrients and low aquatic productivity; (vi) weak tidal influences; (vii) marine bottom water with stable temperature throughout the year; (viii) numerous endemic species; (ix) strongly depth‐stratified benthic assemblages exhibiting high compositional variability over small spatial scales; (x) deepsea species present at anomalously shallow depths; (xi) no conspicuous introduced taxa; (xii) a predominance of fragile sessile invertebrates, including slow‐growing fenestrate bryozoans; and (xiii) sponge spicule‐ and bryozoan‐based sediments that are more characteristic of deep sea and polar environments than those inshore.
  • 2. Although this region has historically been protected by its isolation, seven major anthropogenic stressors now threaten its natural integrity: boating, fishing, dive tourism, nutrient enrichment, introduced species, onshore development, and global climate change. These threats are not randomly distributed but disproportionately affect particular habitat types.
  • 3. For management of environmental risk, the Port Davey–Bathurst Harbour region is subdivided into six biophysical zones, each with different ecological characteristics, values, and types and levels of potential threat. In response to the various threats, the Tasmanian Government has enacted an adaptive management regime that includes a multi‐zoned marine protected area and the largest ‘no‐take’ estuarine protected area in Australia. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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16.
  • 1. The present study characterizes the macro‐epibenthic assemblages, and the relationships between demersal species and benthic habitats on the shelf trawl fishing grounds off the Balearic Islands (western Mediterranean).
  • 2. The data used were collected during experimental bottom trawl surveys from 2002 to 2005. A total of 157 samples from 38–255 m depth were analysed.
  • 3. Three macro‐epibenthic assemblages were identified in both the shallow (at 38–91 m) and deep shelf (90–255 m). Macroalgae bathymetric distribution was identified as the main factor explaining the segregation between shallow and deep shelf assemblages.
  • 4. Two especially sensitive habitats were identified: maërl and crinoid beds; a third habitat was identified as Peyssonnelia beds, which represented the highest biomass on the whole shelf, with a similar species richness to the maërl beds. On the deep shelf, crinoid beds represented the highest biomass.
  • 5. Habitat type had a significant effect on the distribution of demersal commercial species, most of them being more abundant in the two sensitive habitats mentioned and in the Peyssonnelia beds. Some species showed size‐specific habitat preferences.
  • 6. Fisheries management in the area should take into account the resilience of these benthic habitats, and their importance from both ecological and sustainable fisheries management perspectives.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

17.
  1. Abstractions and diversions are prevalent in river networks worldwide; however, specific mechanisms and measures reflecting changes in functional characteristics of aquatic assemblages in response to flow abstraction have not been well established. In particular, the influence of small takes on fish assemblages is poorly understood.
  2. Field surveys and stable‐isotope analyses were used to evaluate the impact of differing levels of flow abstraction on fish assemblage structure, and native–non‐native patterns of coexistence, associated with small surface water abstractions in four streams in New Zealand. Study design accounted for longitudinal processes (spatial autocorrelation) to isolate the effects of abstractions on fish assemblages.
  3. Reaches with reduced flows downstream of abstraction points had significantly lower fish abundances per metre of stream length, probably because of decreased habitat size, altered interspecific interactions and barriers to movement. The loss of larger fish in reaches with high abstraction resulted in shallower mass–abundance slopes and shorter stable isotope‐derived food‐chain lengths, likely to have been caused by fewer trophic links in the food web. The large fish absent from these reaches were flow‐sensitive introduced salmonids, resulting in higher relative abundances of small‐bodied native fish, probably as a result of predatory and competitive release.
  4. Quantification of metrics designed to characterize ecosystem functioning as well as abundance and species composition indicated that small water abstractions can alter both the structure and composition of stream fish assemblages and modify the outcomes of native–non‐native species interactions. Thus, a better understanding of the effects of small abstractions could be used to improve the strategic management of fish in invaded riverscapes.
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