Estimating Long-term Trends in Populations of Two Ecosystem Engineering Burrowing Shrimps in Pacific Northwest (USA) Estuaries.

ABSTRACT: Temporal variation in the density and distribution of the burrowing shrimps, Neotrypaea californiensis and Upogebia pugettensis, were compared in two estuaries along the West coast of the United States (USA) where they are recognized as important ecosystem engineers. Since these shrimp construct deep burrows in the sediment, we quantified the relationship between burrow openings and shrimp density (1.5 and 1.7 burrow openings per shrimp for N. californiensis and U. pugettensis respectively) to permit population abundance estimates to be made over broad landscape scales. Neotrypaea californiensis populations estimated from burrow counts collected using a gridded survey design across representative tide flats declined by 25% between 2008-2010 in Yaquina Bay

SUBMITTER: Dumbauld BR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8048109 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature