Author(s): Bertocci, Iacopo ; Arenas, Francisco ; Cacabelos, Eva ; Martins, Gustavo M. ; Seabra, Maria I. ; Álvaro, Nuno V. ; Fernandes, Joana N. ; Gaião, Raquel ; Mamede, Nuno ; Mulas, Martina ; Neto, Ana I.
Date: 2017
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10174/21079
Origin: Repositório Científico da Universidade de Évora
Subject(s): Human impacts; Rocky intertidal; Algal and invertebrate assemblages; Spatio-temporal scales; Variance components
Differences in the structure and functioning of intensively urbanized vs. less human-affected systems are reported, but such evidence is available for amuch larger extent in terrestrial than in marine systems.Weexamined the hypotheses that (i) urbanization was associated to different patterns of variation of intertidal assemblages between urban and extra-urban environments; (ii) such patterns were consistent acrossmainland and insular systems, spatial scales from 10s cm to 100s km, and a three months period. Several trends emerged: (i) a more homogeneous distribution of most algal groups in the urban compared to the extra-urban condition and the opposite pattern of most invertebrates; (ii) smaller/larger variances of most organisms where these were, respectively, less/more abundant; (iii) largest variability of most response variables at small scale; (iv) no facilitation of invasive species by urbanization and larger cover of canopy-forming algae in the insular extra-urban condition. Present findings confirmthe acknowledged notion that futuremanagement strategieswill require to include representative assemblages and their relevant scales of variation associated to urbanization gradients on both the mainland and the islands.
