Dr Matthew Perkins1, Dr Louise Firth2, Dr Tom Fairchild1, Dr John Griffin1
1Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom, 2University of Plymouth, Plymouth, United Kingdom
Marine infrastructure presents considerable and increasing surface area for colonisation, yet to date, few studies have experimentally assessed how construction material choices or novel habitat configuration may affect colonising biodiversity or ecological function. Here we report upon two UK field experiments. We first tested how material (two rock types, eight concrete mixes, two metals) may affect community structure and function using subtidal settlement tiles over three years. While colonising communities underwent significant successional changes, we found no evidence of material effects on sessile diversity, biomass, and ecosystem function (water-filtration, respiration).
We also tested how changes in habitat diversity may affect community structure, hypothesising that habitat types would both differ in the composition of species supported and interact non-additively through physical and biological connectivity. Hence, species richness may simply reflect the underlying component habitats or, if positive / negative feedbacks are linked to habitat diversity, then richness may be greater / lesser than expected. Using concrete as proxy for intertidal rock, we deployed ‘habitat units’ of varying habitat diversity (constant surface area). 3D-printed moulds fabricated three rock-like features of differing abiotic properties: ‘overhang’, ‘exposed-rock’, ‘rockpool’. We created a monoculture unit of each feature (containing three of the same feature), and a polyculture unit (containing one of each different feature). In-situ monitoring inferred rockpools, when in polyculture, supported elevated richness and abundance, inferring a positive non-additive effect of habitat diversity. Taken together, these studies infer the relatively minor role of material, but that habitat identity and configuration offer considerable scope to influence biodiversity.
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