Abstract
We propose an empirical framework to scale the effects of bioturbation on sediment resuspension to population bioturbation activity, approximated as population metabolic rate. Individual metabolic rates have been estimated as functions of body size and extrapolated to population level. We used experimental flumes to test this approach across different types of marine, soft-sediment bioturbators. We observed that a large part of the variance in biota-mediated sediment resuspension can be explained by a positive relationship with population metabolic rate. Other mechanisms can strongly influence the outcome, such as bioturbation of deep sediment strata, biotic interactions with hydrodynamic stress and overlapping areas of influence must be further investigated. By relating the biota-mediated changes in resuspended sediment to metabolism, we can place our observations within the broader context of the metabolic theory of ecology and to formulate general expectations about changes in biota-mediated sediment resuspension in response to changes in population structure and climate change.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 3831 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2018 |
Funding
We gratefully thank the following people and companies: Conrad Pilditch for providing insights on the flumes realization; Jansen Tholen B.V. for realisation of the flumes, Lowie Haazen, Bert Sinke, Jos van Soelen for their fundamental technical support and for their patience; Nilmawati Nilmawati for her contribution during the experiments; Vincent Escavarge and Ilaria Rosati for providing bioturbators conversion tables; Tommaso di Fonzo for the insights he provided on the statistical modelling; Esther Chang for language editing; and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments that greatly contributed to the improvement of this paper. This work was funded by the Ecoshape/Building with Nature project, with contribution fromthe CoE-Oesterdam project. At the time of starting this project, NIOZ-Yerseke belonged to the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.
