Faunal Communities Are Invariant to Fragmentation in Experimental Seagrass Landscapes.

ABSTRACT: Human-driven habitat fragmentation is cited as one of the most pressing threats facing many coastal ecosystems today. Many experiments have explored the consequences of fragmentation on fauna in one foundational habitat, seagrass beds, but have either surveyed along a gradient of existing patchiness, used artificial materials to mimic a natural bed, or sampled over short timescales. Here, we describe faunal responses to constructed fragmented landscapes varying from 4-400 m2 in two transplant garden experiments incorporating live eelgrass (Zostera marina L.). In experiments replicated within two subestuaries of the Chesapeake Bay, USA across multiple seasons and non-consecutive years, we comprehensively censused mesopredators and epifaunal communities using complementary quantitative metho

SUBMITTER: Lefcheck JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4887026 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature