The soft-bottom community of eight Italian lagoons was analysed taking into account eight biological traits (feeding, mobility, adult life habitat, body size, life span, reproductive technique, type of larva, reproductive frequency), in order to identify the dominant traits in different transitional environments. Moreover, we considered the Ecological Quality Status (EcoQS) of the stations, assessed by two biotic indices, AMBI and Bentix. The classification of the stations into EcoQS classes was used to investigate the relationship between biological functions and ecological quality. The results indicate that the variability of the data was governed by traits linked to resource utilization rather than to life cycle. Correlations between ecological groups and modalities of a few traits were ecologically relevant; however, traits that were able to differentiate lagoons could not differentiate classes of EcoQS. Therefore, ecological status according to AMBI and Bentix resulted rather independent from the functional structure of the considered stations
Functions and ecological status of eight Italian lagoons examined through Biological Traits Analysis (BTA)
MUNARI, Cristina;MISTRI, Michele
2008
Abstract
The soft-bottom community of eight Italian lagoons was analysed taking into account eight biological traits (feeding, mobility, adult life habitat, body size, life span, reproductive technique, type of larva, reproductive frequency), in order to identify the dominant traits in different transitional environments. Moreover, we considered the Ecological Quality Status (EcoQS) of the stations, assessed by two biotic indices, AMBI and Bentix. The classification of the stations into EcoQS classes was used to investigate the relationship between biological functions and ecological quality. The results indicate that the variability of the data was governed by traits linked to resource utilization rather than to life cycle. Correlations between ecological groups and modalities of a few traits were ecologically relevant; however, traits that were able to differentiate lagoons could not differentiate classes of EcoQS. Therefore, ecological status according to AMBI and Bentix resulted rather independent from the functional structure of the considered stationsI documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
