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Potential Effect of Bioturbation by Burrowing Crabs on Sediment Parameters in Coastal Salt Marshes

  • Degradation and Ecological Restoration of Estuarine Wetlands in China
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Abstract

Burrowing crabs are main constituent of estuarine wetlands ecosystems, and provide a variety of ecosystem functions including providing food for waterbirds and fishes, promoting nutrients cycling, and processing sediments deposition. Helice tientsinensis is the dominant crab species which inhabits almost the entire intertidal marshes of the Yellow River Delta. However, for a long time we ignored the crab bioturbation in this area. We know little about whether crabs have potential effects on sediment environment. Here, we investigated the crab burrow characteristics in three marsh zones, and we also analysed the sediment parameters among crab burrow mounds (chimneys), flats (flat areas between burrows), controls (outside of crab bed) and crab fecal deposit. We found that sediment was softer in crab burrow mounds than in flat and control areas. Higher crab density indicates softer sediment. Crab burrow mounds had saltier soil than the flats. Our results showed that sediment total nitrogen, total carbon and organic matter varied among mounds, flats, controls and crab fecal deposit, which indicated that crab bioturbation have potential effects on sediments redistribution and nutrients cycling. Our study is essential to clear the roles of crabs in ecosystems and will benefit for coastal saltmarsh protection and restoration.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported financially by Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (51639001), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019NTS11), National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (51709279, 51809287, 51909006), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018 M630182, 2018 M641249, 2019 T120116).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment, State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Tian Xie, Baoshan Cui, Junhong Bai, Qing Wang & Zhonghua Ning

  2. Yellow River Estuary Wetland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Ministry of Education, Shandong, 257500, China

    Tian Xie, Baoshan Cui & Junhong Bai

  3. Department of Water Environment, Beijing Water Science and Technology Institute, Beijing, 100048, China

    Peng Dou

  4. Department of Water Environment, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038, China

    Shanze Li

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  1. Tian Xie
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  2. Peng Dou
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  3. Shanze Li
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  4. Baoshan Cui
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  5. Junhong Bai
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  6. Qing Wang
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  7. Zhonghua Ning
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Correspondence to Baoshan Cui.

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Xie, T., Dou, P., Li, S. et al. Potential Effect of Bioturbation by Burrowing Crabs on Sediment Parameters in Coastal Salt Marshes. Wetlands 40, 2775–2784 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-020-01341-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-020-01341-1

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