Long-term effects of mechanical harvesting of lugworms Arenicola marina on the zoobenthic community of a tidal flat in the Wadden Sea |
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| Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Environment, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 13012, PR China;2. Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA;3. College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou 311300, PR China;1. Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche ed Ambientali, University of the Salento – 73100, Lecce, Italy;2. School of Marine Science, Sun Yat-sen University, 510275 Guangzhou, China;3. Wageningen Marine Research, Wageningen University and Research, P.B. 77, 4400 AB Yerseke, The Netherlands;4. Department of Estuarine and Delta Systems, Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ) and Utrecht University, 4401 NT Yerseke, The Netherlands;5. Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CN, P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA, Delft, The Netherlands;6. Deltares, P.O. Box 177, 2600 MH, Delft, The Netherlands;7. Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80.115, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The Netherlands;1. MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ESTM – School of Tourism and Maritime Technology, Polytechnic of Leiria, Peniche 2520-641, Portugal;2. FCTUC - Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra 3000-456, Portugal;3. MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra 3000-456, Portugal |
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| Abstract: | More than half of the annual catch of about 30 million lugworms Arenicola marina from the Dutch Wadden Sea originates from digging machines which make 40-cm deep guilles in a few restricted tidal-flat areas (Texel, Balgzand) in the westernmost part of the Wadden Sea. Four successive years (1978–1982) of frequent disturbance by a lugworm dredge of one of the 15 sampling stations involved in a long-term study of the dynamics of the macrozoobenthos on Balgzand allowed a study of long-term effects of mechanical lugworm digging.Within an area of about 1 km2, a near-doubling of the annual lugworm mortality rate resulted in a gradual and substantial decline of the local lugworm stock from more than twice the overall Balgzand mean at the start of the 4-year digging period to a value close to this mean at the end of the period (when the dredge moved to a richer area). Simultaneously, total zoobenthic biomass declined even more by the almost complete extinction of the population of larger gaper clams Mya arenaria that initially comprised half of the total biomass. Of the other, mostly short-lived, species only Heteromastus filiformis showed a clear reduction during the dredging period. Recovery of the biomass of the benthos took several years, particularly by the slow re-establishment of a Mya population with a normal size and age structure. |
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