Estuarine Benthos: Long-Term Community Structure Variations, Corpus Christi Bay, Texas

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A study of the benthic communities in Corpus Christi Bay was carried out between 1974 and 1979 to identify both natural and human-induced variations in community dynamics of the benthos over a long time period of monthly samples collection. General results of the investigation were comparable to previous shorter-term studies of this estuary in respect to species list of dominant fauna, total densities and species diversity measures. The present study emphasized two habitats: a channel 15 m deep and a shoal less than 3.5 m deep. Channel stations exhibited lower species numbers, densities, and species diversity than shoal sites but in contrast showed more even distributions of population numbers between species (equitability) than shoal sites. Hierarchical classification procedures identified community structure patterns that were associated with a major disturbance to the area, dredging, as well as minor, more frequent disturbances associated with large ship traffic and shrimp trawling activities in the channel. The community variable of species number and total density were also related to changes in salinity patterns in the study area. The results of this long-term study illustrated the resilience of benthic communities to disturbance. They also provided supportive evidence to hypotheses concerning the high resistence of communities to disturbance in inconstant environments and the source of colonists in these environments after a major disturbance to the bottom.