Geographic variation in diversity of wave exposed rocky intertidal communities along central Chile Variación geográfica de la biodiversidad en hábitats intermareales rocosos de Chile central
subject: Diversidad, Intertidal ecology, biological diversity, ecología intermareal, gradientes latitudinales en diversidad, latitudinal diversity gradient, riqueza de especies, species richness
description: Along the coast of central Chile, geographic trends of diversity have been inferred from literature compilations and museum collections based on species range limits for some taxonomic groups. However, spatially-intensive field-based assessments of macrobenthic species richness are largely missing. Over the course of a multiyear study (1998-2005), we characterized latitudinal patterns of rocky intertidal diversity at 18 sites along the coast of central Chile (29-36° S). At each site, the number of sessile and mobile macrobenthic species was quantified in 0.25 m² quadrats. Two estimators of local (alpha) diversity were used: observed local species richness, calculated from the asymptote of a species-rarefaction curve, and the Chao2 index, which takes into account the effect of rare species on estimates of local richness. We identified a total of 71 species belonging to 66 genera for a total of 86 taxa. The most diverse groups were herbivorous mollusks (27 taxa) and macroalgae (43 taxa). Diversity showed a complex spatial pattern with areas of high species richness interspersed with areas of low richness. In accordance with previous work, we found no trend in the number of herbivorous mollusks and an inverse and significant latitudinal gradient in the number of algal species. Our results highlight the need for taxonomically diverse assessments of biodiversity of the dominant taxa that conform intertidal communities.A lo largo de la costa de Chile central, los patrones geográficos de diversidad han sido inferidos a partir de revisiones literarias y colecciones de museos para algunos grupos taxonómicos. Sin embargo, aun no contamos con una evaluación integral, y en terreno, de la riqueza de especies macrobentónicas intermareales. En un estudio de largo plazo conducido entre 1998 y 2005 caracterizamos los patrones latitudinales en la biodiversidad del intermareal rocoso en 18 sitios a lo largo de la costa de Chile central (29-36° S). En cada sitio, el número de especies …
creator: BERNARDO R BROITMAN, FREDY VÉLIZ, TATIANA MANZUR, EVIE A WIETERS, G RANDALL FINKE, PAULINA A FORNES, NELSON VALDIVIA, SERGIO A NAVARRETE
source: Revista Chilena de Historia Natural
publisher: BMC
date: 2011
relation: http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0716-078X2011000100011
coverage: Botany, Zoology