IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0191346.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effective dispersal and density-dependence in mesophotic macroalgal forests: Insights from the Mediterranean species Cystoseira zosteroides

Author

Listed:
  • Pol Capdevila
  • Cristina Linares
  • Eneko Aspillaga
  • Joan Lluís Riera
  • Bernat Hereu

Abstract

Dispersal and recruitment are fundamental processes for population recovery following disturbances in sessile species. While both processes are well understood for many terrestrial species, they still remain poorly resolved for some macroalgal species. Here we experimentally investigated the effective dispersal and recruit survival of a mesophotic Mediterranean fucoid, Cystoseira zosteroides. In three isolated populations, four sets of settlement collectors were placed at increasing distances (from 0 to 10 m) and different orientations (North, South, East and West). We observed that effective dispersal was restricted to populations’ vicinity, with an average of 6.43 m and not further than 13.33 m, following a Weibull distribution. During their first year of life, survival was up to 50%, but it was lower underneath the adult canopy, suggesting a negative density-dependence. To put our results in a broader context we compared the effective dispersal of other fucoid and kelp species reported in the literature, which confirmed the low dispersal ability of brown algae, in particular for fucoids, with an effective dispersal of few meters. Given the importance of recruitment for the persistence and recovery of populations after disturbances, these results underline the vulnerability of C. zosteroides and other fucoid species to escalating threats.

Suggested Citation

  • Pol Capdevila & Cristina Linares & Eneko Aspillaga & Joan Lluís Riera & Bernat Hereu, 2018. "Effective dispersal and density-dependence in mesophotic macroalgal forests: Insights from the Mediterranean species Cystoseira zosteroides," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0191346
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191346
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191346&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0191346?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. T. P. Hughes & A. H. Baird & E. A. Dinsdale & N. A. Moltschaniwskyj & M. S. Pratchett & J. E. Tanner & B. L. Willis, 1999. "Patterns of recruitment and abundance of corals along the Great Barrier Reef," Nature, Nature, vol. 397(6714), pages 59-63, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laura Tamburello & Loredana Papa & Giuseppe Guarnieri & Laura Basconi & Serena Zampardi & Maria Beatrice Scipione & Antonio Terlizzi & Valerio Zupo & Simonetta Fraschetti, 2019. "Are we ready for scaling up restoration actions? An insight from Mediterranean macroalgal canopies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-23, October.
    2. Szewczyk, Tim M. & Moore, Pippa J. & Smale, Dan A. & Adams, Thomas & Burrows, Michael T., 2024. "Mechanistic simulations of kelp populations in a dynamic landscape of light, temperature, and winter storms," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 488(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Conrad W Speed & Russ C Babcock & Kevin P Bancroft & Lynnath E Beckley & Lynda M Bellchambers & Martial Depczynski & Stuart N Field & Kim J Friedman & James P Gilmour & Jean-Paul A Hobbs & Halina T Ko, 2013. "Dynamic Stability of Coral Reefs on the West Australian Coast," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-12, July.
    2. Nelson Valdivia & Ricardo A Scrosati & Markus Molis & Amanda S Knox, 2011. "Variation in Community Structure across Vertical Intertidal Stress Gradients: How Does It Compare with Horizontal Variation at Different Scales?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(8), pages 1-8, August.
    3. Kininmonth, Stuart & van Oppen, Madeleine J.H. & Possingham, Hugh P., 2010. "Determining the community structure of the coral Seriatopora hystrix from hydrodynamic and genetic networks," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(24), pages 2870-2880.
    4. Patricia Prado & Fiona Tomas & Stefania Pinna & Simone Farina & Guillem Roca & Giulia Ceccherelli & Javier Romero & Teresa Alcoverro, 2012. "Habitat and Scale Shape the Demographic Fate of the Keystone Sea Urchin Paracentrotus lividus in Mediterranean Macrophyte Communities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-10, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0191346. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.