Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://repositorio.ufba.br/handle/ri/16303
metadata.dc.type: Artigo de Periódico
Title: Structural and functional approaches to describe polychaete assemblages: ecological implications for estuarine ecosystems
Other Titles: Marine and Freshwater Research
Authors: Magalhães, Wagner Ferreira
Barros, Francisco
metadata.dc.creator: Magalhães, Wagner Ferreira
Barros, Francisco
Abstract: Polychaete assemblages are of special interest when studying dynamic environments such as estuaries because of their high plasticity in life strategies to cope with environmental variability. We tested the hypothesis that polychaete feeding guilds would be more related to environmental characteristics than to taxonomic composition. Polychaetes were sampled on two different occasions along three tropical estuarine systems in north-eastern Brazil. Different polychaete taxa replaced one another along the entire salinity gradient and the overall pattern from high- to low-salinity regions was from high species and feeding-guild diversities to dominance by a single species or a feeding group. We suggest that the relationships between structure and function of polychaete assemblages might provide a measure of the resilience of estuarine conditions; estuaries with a high redundancy in the trophic role of polychaetes might recover faster from disturbance and retain more natural ecological functions than those estuaries with low or no redundancy, because more species would have the capacity to expand their niches to compensate for the loss of neighbouring species. Integrative approaches allying species composition to their trophic role need to be thoroughly investigated to help understand such complex temporal and spatial organisation of benthic assemblages in estuaries.
Keywords: Ecosystem resilience
Feeding guilds
Polychaeta
Tropics
Zoobenthos
metadata.dc.rights: Acesso Aberto
URI: http://repositorio.ufba.br/ri/handle/ri/16303
Issue Date: 2011
Appears in Collections:Artigo Publicado em Periódico (Biologia)

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