Subtidal macrozoobenthos communities from northern Chile during and post El Niño 1997-1998
Author
dc.contributor.author
Moreno, Rodrigo A.
Author
dc.contributor.author
Sepúlveda, Roger D.
Author
dc.contributor.author
Badano, Ernesto I.
Author
dc.contributor.author
Thatje, Sven
Author
dc.contributor.author
Rozbaczylo, Nicolás
Author
dc.contributor.author
Carrasco, Franklin D.
Admission date
dc.date.accessioned
2018-12-20T14:11:46Z
Available date
dc.date.available
2018-12-20T14:11:46Z
Publication date
dc.date.issued
2008
Cita de ítem
dc.identifier.citation
Helgol Mar Res (2008) 62 (Suppl 1):S45–S55
Identifier
dc.identifier.issn
1438387X
Identifier
dc.identifier.issn
14383888
Identifier
dc.identifier.other
10.1007/s10152-007-0095-2
Identifier
dc.identifier.uri
https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/154637
Abstract
dc.description.abstract
Despite a large amount of climatic and oceanographic information dealing with the recurring climate
phenomenon El Nin˜o (EN) and its well known impact on
diversity of marine benthic communities, most published
data are rather descriptive and consequently our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and processes that
drive community structure during EN are still very scarce.
In this study, we address two questions on the effects of EN
on macrozoobenthic communities: (1) how does EN affect
species diversity of the communities in northern Chile?
and (2) is EN a phenomenon that restarts community
assembling processes by affecting species interactions in
northern Chile? To answer these questions, we compared
species diversity and co-occurrence patterns of soft-bottoms macrozoobenthos communities from the continental
shelf off northern Chile during (March 1998) and after
(September 1998) the strong EN event 1997–1998. The
methods used varied from species diversity and species cooccurrence analyses to multivariate ordination methods.
Our results indicate that EN positively affects diversity of
macrozoobenthos communities in the study area, increasing the species richness and diversity and decreasing the
species dominance. EN represents a strong disturbance that
affects species interactions that rule the species assembling
processes in shallow-water, sea-bottom environments.