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ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2014, a field study was carried out in four coastal rocky bottoms from the southeast coast of Spain. In this region, dense canopies of Ericaria mediterranea characterize the undisturbed areas and cover much of the infralittoral stage. Turfs composed of the coralline algae Ellisolandia elongata replace the canopy in places where any anthropogenic disturbance occurs. The main objective of this study was to compare the peracarid fauna inhabiting within the two types of phytal substrate, and to conduct several statistical analyses to detect significant differences between the two assemblages. Contrary to expected, the analyses showed that in E. elongata there was a higher population density of peracarids, as well as higher species richness and values for α-diversity indexes. However, none of these differences was statistically significant, although site-to-site comparison indicated greater differences between locations with the same physical cover. The data pointed out that the assemblage that inhabits the coralline turfs in the area was not an impoverished version of that found in pristine locations, so these algae can act as a suitable habitat for peracarids in case of mild human disturbance.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their great gratitude to Silvia López Velasco for her valuable help during sampling, and to Carlos Navarro-Barranco, from Universidad de Sevilla, for his advice in species identification. The suggestions by two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the scientific quality of this study and are warmly acknowledged. The Board of Environmental Affairs of the Junta de Andalucía granted permission to conduct the sampling in Villaricos and the surrounding area.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).