A review of coastal anthropogenic impacts on mytilid mussel beds: Effects on mussels and their associated assemblages

Mussel beds are an important habitat in many coastal systems, harboring a high diversity of biota. They are threatened by anthropogenic impacts that affect mussels and their associated assemblages. Pollution, harvesting, trampling, dredging and trawling are major threats faced by these communities....

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sampaio, Leandro, Moreira da Rocha, Juan, Rubal, Marcos, Guerrero-Meseguer, Laura, Veiga, Puri
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/706992
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/706992
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/d14050409
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Bivalvia
Mytilus Edulis
Epibiont
Biología y Biomedicina / Biología
Descripción
Sumario:Mussel beds are an important habitat in many coastal systems, harboring a high diversity of biota. They are threatened by anthropogenic impacts that affect mussels and their associated assemblages. Pollution, harvesting, trampling, dredging and trawling are major threats faced by these communities. Most of the studies on the effects of such impacts on the mussel beds overlook the associated fauna. Since mussels are very resilient, especially to pollution, the associated fauna can provide a better footprint of the impacts’ effects. In this review, we looked into the main remarks regarding the effects of anthropogenic impacts in mussel bed communities. Organic pollution was the best studied impact and the Atlantic region was the best studied zone. Low values of abundance, biomass, diversity, evenness and species richness were reported for all categories of impacts, with some studies describing declines in at least three of these descriptors. Among the associated fauna, some tolerant species benefited from the impacts, particularly organic enrichment, and became more abundant, but sensitive species suffered considerable declines in density, mainly in dredging and trawling impacts. Therefore, fauna associated with mussel beds is a suitable indicator of anthropogenic disturbances