EGU2020-21590
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21590
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Describing macrofaunal impact on nutrient flux – what is the potential of trait based approaches?

Alexa Wrede1,2,3, Henrike Andresen1,2,4, Ragnhild Asmus5, Karen Helen Wiltshire5, and Thomas Brey1,2
Alexa Wrede et al.
  • 1Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Functional Ecology, Bremerhaven, Germany (alexa.wrede@awi.de)
  • 2Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University Oldenburg, Ammerländer Heerstraße 231, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
  • 3Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht Center for Materials and Coastal Research, Max-Planck Str. 1, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
  • 4Thünen Institute, Institute of Sea Fisheries, Herwigstraße 31, 27572 Bremerhaven, Germany
  • 5Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Wattenmeerstation Sylt, Hafenstraße 43, 25992 List, Germany

Ever-expanding human activities on land and at sea have amplified the need for easily applicable proxies to effectively predict human mediated changes in ecosystem functioning and biogeochemical cycling. Here we investigate the ability of different proxies to predict macrofaunal impact on nutrient fluxes of ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, silicate and phosphate under different environmental conditions. As proxies we chose simple community descriptors (i.e. density, wet biomass, ash free dry mass) as well as two trait-based indices that were created to describe macrofauna-sediment interactions (i.e. community bioturbation potential (BPc) and community irrigation potential (IPc)). We hypothesize that trait based indices, will increase the predictability of macrofaunal impact on nutrient fluxes compared the more simple community descriptors. We correlate all proxies with experimental nutrient flux data measured under different environmental conditions using generalized linear models. Generally environmental conditions significantly affected all analysed nutrient fluxes and mostly provided better predictions than any of the proxies for macrofaunal impact by itself. Yet a combination of the proxies and the environmental conditions always increased prediction accuracy. Hereby the irrigation trait based indices enhanced the predictability of the nutrient fluxes of ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, silicate and phosphate most.

How to cite: Wrede, A., Andresen, H., Asmus, R., Wiltshire, K. H., and Brey, T.: Describing macrofaunal impact on nutrient flux – what is the potential of trait based approaches?, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-21590, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21590, 2020

This abstract will not be presented.