Ecological quality assessement of marinas: An integrative approach combining biological and environmental data

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

卷:286

Article

Guerra-Garcia, Jose M.¹  Navarro-Barranco, Carlos¹  Ros, Macarena¹  Sedano, Francisco¹  Espinar, Rafael¹  Fernandez-Romero, Alejandro¹  Martinez-Laiz, Gemma¹  Cuesta, Jose A.²  Giraldez, Inmaculada³  Morales, Emilio³  Florido, Marta¹  Moreira, Juan^4,5 

[1] Univ Seville, Fac Biol, Dept Zool, Lab Biol Marina, Ave Reina Mercedes 6, Seville 41012, Spain

[2] CSIC, Inst Ciencias Marinas Andalucia, Avda Republ Saharaui 2, Cadiz 11519, Spain

[3] Pro2TecS Univ Huelva, Fac Ciencias, Expt Res Ctr Technol Prod & Chem Proc, Dept Quim Prof JC Vilchez Martin, Avda Fuerzas Armadas S-N, Huelva 21071, Spain

[4] Univ Autonoma Madrid, Dept Biol, Unidad Zool, Madrid, Spain

[5] Univ Autonoma Madrid, Ctr Invest Biodiversidad & Cambio Global CIBC UAM, Madrid, Spain

关键词: Marinas;    Ecological assessment;    Macrofauna;    Meiofauna;    Soft bottoms;    Taxonomic resolution;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112237

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

The importance of marinas as infrastructures for recreational boating is increasing substantially. However, information on their soft-bottom benthic communities, a key tool for managing programmes, is still scarce. We combined environment features with macro-and meiofaunal soft-bottom community information for assessing the ecological status of marinas with an integrative approach. To address this issue, we focused on eight marinas of the Southern Iberian Peninsula. Macro-and meiofauna data revealed high benthic heterogeneity at a spatial scale. The environmental variables which correlated best with macrofauna were mainly phosphorus, granulometry, and total organic carbon, and secondarily important variables were faecal coliforms, the biocide Irgarol, and heavy metals; total hydrocarbon concentration was also significant for meiofauna. Annelida was the dominant phylum in terms of number of species (37%) and abundance (66%) and were better descriptors of the environmental conditions than Arthropoda and Mollusca. Although identification to the species level is desirable and mandatory for assessing biological pollution, significant differences among marinas and correlations between fauna and abiotic variables were already detected at the level of family and order. This implies that biota assessment at higher levels may still be useful in monitoring programmes limited by time and budget constraints. The major novelty of this study lies in the development of an integrative assessment method based on the following selected ecological indicators: Marinas Environmental Pollution Index (MEPI), Biocontamination Index (BCI), macrofaunal biotic indices (AMBI, M-AMBI, BENTIX, MEDOCC and BENFES), macrofaunal taxa richness and Shannon-Wiener?s diversity, and nematode:copepod index. This approach was able to discriminate marinas of the Southern Iberian Peninsula based on their ecological status, which ranged from poor to good. The method can be useful to design standards for assigning ?sustainable quality seals? to those marinas with better values of ecological indicators.

【 授权许可】

Free