An approach to detecting species diversity of microfaunas in colonization surveys for marine bioassessment based on rarefaction curves

• Published in: Marine pollution bulletin 2014-11, Vol.88 (1-2), p.268-274
• Main Authors: Xu, Guangjian, Zhong, Xiaoxiao, Wang, Yangfan, Xu, Henglong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied ecology; Aquatic Organisms - physiology; Biodiversity; Biological and medical sciences; Ecotoxicology, biological effects of pollution; Environmental Monitoring; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects. Techniques; Marine; Marine and brackish environment; Methods and techniques (sampling, tagging, trapping, modelling...); Models, Biological; Sea water ecosystems; Seawater; Synecology
• ISSN: 0025-326X; 1879-3363
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.08.032

The objective of this study was to measure α-, β- and γ-diversity of microfaunas with different ages in colonization surveys using rarefaction-modeling methods. A dataset was complied based on a microperiphyton survey in coastal waters of the Yellow Sea, near Qingdao. The analyses showed that: (1) there was a strong residual influence of sampling effort on β- and γ-diversity after rarefaction, especially for the young communities; (2) the rarefaction curves were well fitted to the Michaelis-Menten equation, and allow modeling and removing the residual influence of sampling effort on β- and γ-diversity; and (3) the estimated values of α-, β- and γ-diversity of a community based on the rarefaction-modeling method were independent of the influence of sampling effort. The results suggest that this approach may be used as a feasible tool to detect α-, β- and γ-diversity without the influence of sampling effort in microfauna colonization surveys for marine bioassessment.