Stürmer, Heike (2006) Effects of temporally variable disturbance regimes on structure and diversity of marine macrobenthic communities in the mediterranean, Alexandria, Egypt. (Diploma thesis), Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany, 66 pp.

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Abstract

It has recently been suggested that the temporal variation around the mean intensity of a causal process can have important implications for the response of community assemblages. In this study I investigated the effects of changing the mean temporal variability (intervals between disturbance events) of a disturbance (predictor variable) on the diversity and structure of a marine macrobenthic fouling community (response variables) in the Eastern Mediterranean. I did this in a multi-factorial experiment conducted on artificial settlement panels in the Eastern Harbour of Alexandria, Egypt. The results presented in this study illustrate the importance of temporal variability in a nonselective, physical disturbance regime as well as their intrinsic specific timing for the structuring of a marine macrobenthic community. In general, the effects of temporally variable disturbance regimes were more reflected in the abundance of single species than in community diversity. I conclude that temporally variable disturbance regimes will affect comparable systems, such as grasslands, tropical rainforests, mangroves and coral reefs, under the cooccurence of the following factors: The community affected has to be competitive with a limiting resource that is released by the disturbance. The recruitment and growth of present species have to exhibit temporal patterns that interact with the temporal patterning of disturbance events. Additionally, two strategies for the occupation of space, vegetative growth and recruitment by propagules that stem from outside the system, have to be realised.

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