Human access impacts biodiversity of microscopic animals in sandy beaches.

ABSTRACT: Whereas most work to understand impacts of humans on biodiversity on coastal areas has focused on large, conspicuous organisms, we highlight effects of tourist access on the diversity of microscopic marine animals (meiofauna). We used a DNA metabarcoding approach with an iterative and phylogeny-based approach for the taxonomic assignment of meiofauna and relate diversity patterns to the numbers of tourists accessing sandy beaches on an otherwise un-impacted island National Park. Tourist frequentation, independently of differences in sediment granulometry, beach length, and other potential confounding factors, affected meiofaunal diversity in the shallow "swash" zone right at the mean water mark; the impacts declined with water depth (up to 2 m). The indicated negative effect on meiofauna m

SUBMITTER: Martinez A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7170908 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature