Elsevier

Journal of Sea Research

Volume 156, January 2020, 101833
Journal of Sea Research

Surf zone zooplankton temporal dynamics and their environmental regulation in a southwestern Atlantic sandy beach (Pehuen Co, Argentina)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seares.2019.101833Get rights and content

Highlights

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    The zooplankton community showed a strong seasonality in surf zone waters.

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    Seasonality is mainly attributed to temporal changes in water temperature.

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    Abundance was affected by local variations of littoral current velocities and wave's height.

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    Surf-waters hydrodynamic can mask the effects of seasonality on zooplankton community.

Abstract

Temporal dynamics of a zooplankton community were examined in the surf zone of Pehuen Co beach (PC), Argentina. The effect of environmental variables on the zooplankton composition and abundance was also investigated. Samples were obtained monthly between December 2016 and November 2017 from a fixed site during low tide. In all, 37 taxa were representative of the community. Meroplankton represented 59.45% of the total taxa, whereas holoplankton reached 40.54%. Five species were dominant: Acartia tonsa in summer months (2032 ind. m−3 in March), Paracalanus parvus and Ctenocalanus vanus in winter (4055 ind. m−3 and 264 ind. m−3, respectively, in July), and the sergestid Peisos petrunkevitchi (838.7 ind. m−3 in September) and the mysids Arthromysis magellanica (284 ind. m−3 in October) in spring. The highest total zooplankton abundances were registered in summer and winter, and the lowest ones were registered in autumn. The zooplankton community showed a strong seasonality, which can be mainly attributed to temporal changes in water temperature and to variations in suspended particulate matter (SPM), particulate organic matter (POM), and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a). Our results show that the zooplankton community structure was also affected by local variations in the velocity of the littoral current (VLC) and the wave height (WH). The present study shows that, besides seasonality, which seemed to be strong in this temperate region, other events affect zooplankton dynamics at a short-term time scale. Both VLC and WH are key factors that affect the zooplankton community structure in PC.

Introduction

The surf zone of sandy beaches is the transition area between the breaking zone of waves and the swash zone. It plays an essential role in the transport of materials and the exchange of organic matter and nutrients with adjacent habitats (McLachlan and Defeo, 2018). These productive ecosystems support a diverse coastal fauna (Schlacher et al., 2008; Dugan et al., 2015; Manning et al., 2013; McLachlan and Defeo, 2018) and are generally used by endemic species as well as by the transient taxa that arrive to take advantage of feeding conditions (McLachlan and Defeo, 2018). Despite the importance of the surf zone, current knowledge is mainly focused on variations in phytoplankton and benthic macrofauna there, with few studies focused on the zooplankton community (e.g., Dominguez-Granda et al., 2004; Odebrecht et al., 2010; Pinheiro et al., 2013; Odebrecht et al., 2014; Marin Jarrin et al., 2017).

Zooplankton communities play an essential role in the ecology of surf zones, serving as a connection with different trophic levels (Oliveira-Santos et al., 2016). In addition, the fauna of the lowest beach may extend its distribution seawards into the turbulent surf zone, where zooplankton can be abundant (Defeo et al., 2009). DeLancey (1989) stated that zooplankton represents the main food item for larvae and juveniles of fishes visiting the surf zone. Given that zooplankton is a primary food supply for fishes but also for suspension feeding macrofauna, changes in this community would have a relevant impact on sandy beach ecosystems (Defeo et al., 2009). The zooplankton community is the least studied one in surf zones worldwide, mainly due to the difficulty in sampling because of the dynamic physical conditions (McLachlan and Defeo, 2018). Moreover, most previous studies focused on tropical and subtropical sandy beaches (Avila et al., 2009; Da Costa et al., 2011; Pinheiro et al., 2011, Pinheiro et al., 2013; Aboul Ezz et al., 2014; Oliveira-Santos et al., 2016), whereas very few studies considered temperate systems (DeLancey, 1987; Stull et al., 2016; Menéndez et al., 2019).

It has been demonstrated that the effect of environmental variables on the spatio-temporal distribution of planktonic organisms in surf zones is substantial (Aboul Ezz et al., 2014; Stull et al., 2016; Menéndez et al., 2019). Constant temperatures and oligotrophic waters are factors influencing the zooplankton dynamics in subtropical sandy beaches such as Ajuruteua (Pinheiro et al., 2013) and Fortaleza (Oliveira-Santos et al., 2016) in northern Brazil. The effect of seasonality, principally in terms of changes in precipitation, and the associated changes in salinity have a substantial impact on local zooplankton dynamics in Ajuruteua beach (Da Costa et al., 2011). Thus, knowledge about the influence of environmental variables on surf zooplankton dynamics can contribute to an improved understanding of changes in the marine coastal function, potentially providing a useful tool for future samplings in similar coastal areas. Therefore, the specific aims of this study were: (i) to investigate the temporal dynamics of the composition and abundance of the surf zone zooplankton in a temperate sandy beach and (ii) to evaluate its association with environmental variables.

Section snippets

Study site

Pehuen Co beach (PC; 38°59′51” S; 61°33′16” W) is located in the southwest coast of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, 80 km away from the innermost zone of the Bahía Blanca Estuary (BBE) (Fig. 1). It is a dissipative sandy beach, situated in an open bay with a straight E-W orientated shoreline. The area has a mesotidal regime with semidiurnal tides, with an amplitude range between 2.32 m and 3.35 m for neap and spring conditions, respectively (Servicio de Hidrografía Naval (SHN), 2009). In PC,

Environmental variables

During the study period, water temperature varied from 10 °C in August to 25 °C in February (Fig. 2A). Salinity showed a similar trend, with minimum values in August (31) and maximum ones in February (34) (Fig. 2A). Chl-a fluctuated between 2.5 μg L−1 (February) and 17 μg L−1 (November), being high in March (11.1 μg L−1), July (12 μg L−1), and September (12.3 μg L−1) (Fig. 2B). SPM and POM showed a clear seasonal pattern, with minimum concentrations in warmer months (SPM: 45.3 mg L−1, February;

Discussion

We observed strong seasonal variation in the zooplankton community structure in PC. Total zooplankton abundance was similar to that found by Morgan et al. (2016) for the surf zone of some sandy beaches in Monterey Bay, USA, but approximately an order of magnitude lower than those reported in similar studies in other temperate surf waters (Stull et al., 2016) and tropical areas (Da Costa et al., 2011; Pinheiro et al., 2013). The seasonal pattern in abundances of the dominant copepods was

Financial support

This work was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, Argentina) through an internal doctoral scholarship-CONICET 2016-20120 (B. C. A., 2282016000116500).

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

Partial support for this research was provided by grants from the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCYT, PICT2012-0356) and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, PIP 1122030100467CO). We also thank Dr. Walter Melo for drawing the map of the study area and Dr. Martín Amodeo for his valuable contribution to the statistical analysis section of the manuscript.

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      Studies on zooplankton biodiversity and population processes have been done in estuaries and other coastal areas (e.g. David et al., 2005; Gonçalves et al., 2015; Marques et al., 2014; Queiroga et al., 2005), but few focused on surf zones. Surf zone zooplanktonic communities are poorly known worldwide, with few studies carried out in Brazil (e.g. Avila et al., 2009; da Costa et al., 2011; Oliveira Santos et al., 2016; Pinheiro et al., 2013, 2011; Rodrigues et al., 2019), India (Ku Sahu et al., 2012), United States of America (DeLancey, 1987; Morgan et al., 2016; Stull et al., 2015); Argentina (Baleani et al., 2020; Menéndez et al., 2019), Egypt (Aboul Ezz et al., 2014) and Mexico (Fernández-Aldecoa et al., 2019). The surf zone communities included Copepoda, Cirripedia, Mysidacea, Bivalvia, Polychaeta, Decapoda larvae, Amphipoda and Isopoda, being the first group the dominant one.

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