Salinity stress drives herbivory rates and selective grazing in subtidal seagrass communities.

ABSTRACT: The role of environmental-stress gradients in driving trophic processes like grazing, has potential to shape ecosystem responses to environmental change. In subtidal seagrass systems, however, the variation in top-down processes along stress gradients are poorly understood. We deployed herbivory assays using the five most common seagrass species of Shark Bay, to determine whether herbivory pressure changed across a salinity-stress gradient from oceanic (38 PSU) to hyper-saline (51 PSU) conditions. Seagrass tissue removed from herbivory assays by fishes decreased as environmental stress increased, and herbivores consumed greater amounts of tropical seagrass species compared to the temperate species that dominate seagrass cover in Shark Bay. This heightened consumption was correlated with en

SUBMITTER: Bell SY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6428295 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature