fff6bf79d01ff3cda92124a9941ac06d English dataset Matt Arnold DASSH, The Archive for Marine Species and Habitat Data matarn@mba.ac.uk pointOfContact 2024-07-16 MEDIN Discovery metadata standard 2.3.8 urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326 2005 Joyce et al. Sussex records of Ficopomatus enigmaticus 2005-09-01 publication DASSHDT00000174 http://www.dassh.ac.uk Coastal water bodies are a heterogeneous resource typified by high spatial and temporal variability and threatened by anthropogenic impacts. This includes saline lagoons, which support a specialist biota and are a priority habitat for nature conservation. This paper describes the biotic variation in coastal water bodies in Sussex, England, in order to characterise the distinctiveness of the saline lagoon community and elucidate environmental factors that determine its distribution. Twenty-eight coastal water bodies were surveyed for their aquatic flora and invertebrate fauna and a suite of exploratory environmental variables compiled. Ordination and cluster analyses were used to examine patterns in community composition and relate these to environmental parameters. Biotic variation in the coastal water body resource was high. Salinity was the main environmental parameter explaining the regional distribution of taxa; freshwater and saline assemblages were evident and related to sea water ingress. Freshwater sites were indicated by the plant Myriophyllum spicatum and gastropod mollusc Lymnaea peregra, while more saline communities supported marine and brackish water taxa, notably a range of chlorophytic algae and the bivalve mollusc Cerastoderma glaucum. Site community differences were also related to bank slope and parameters describing habitat heterogeneity. A saline lagoon community was discerned within the matrix of biotic variation consisting of specialist lagoonal species with associated typically euryhaline taxa. For fauna, the latter were the molluscs Abra tenuis and Hydrobia ulvae, and the crustaceans Corophium volutator and Palaemonetes varians, and for flora they were the algae Ulva lactuca, Chaetomorpha mediterranea, Cladophora spp. and Enteromorpha intestinalis. One non-native polychaete species, Ficopomatus enigmaticus, also strongly influenced community structure within the lagoonal resource. The community was not well defined as specialist and associated taxa were distributed throughout the spectrum of sites surveyed. Implications for the identification and conservation of saline lagoons are discussed. Chris Joyce University of Sussex Centre for Coastal Research Researcher dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk originator Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (DASSH) Data Manager 01752 633102 01752 633291 Marine Biological Association of the UK, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill Plymouth PL1 2PB dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk custodian notPlanned Delimited Marine Environmental Data and Information Network NDGO0005 Species distribution GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-01-06 revision Zoobenthos generic abundance SeaDataNet P021 parameter discovery vocabulary 2009-11-16 revision Biodiversity GEMET 2011-07-06 creation CC BY NC otherRestrictions DASSH terms and conditions apply English biota Charting Progress 2 Sea Areas 2009-06-18 creation Eastern Channel -0.9541 -0.7090 50.7478 50.8684 2001-06-18 2001-09-18 Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (DASSH) Data Manager 01752 633102 01752 633291 Marine Biological Association of the UK, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill Plymouth PL1 2PB dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk distributor https://doi.org/10.17031/66864eeb0e44a DOI link A link to the web service or dataset http://https://www.dassh.ac.uk/ dassh website A link to the general host site dataset Part of MSFD NNS baseline data collation project (Jan 2016). Subset of a dataset as we were only pulling out records for a selection of INNS. Contains records for Ficopomatus enigmaticus. If any sensitive species or biotope records are present within this dataset, they will have been removed. If you wish to request access to sensitive species records, please contact the metadata contact. The UK Sensitive Species list has been agreed by UK statutory bodies and relevant experts. It can be viewed here https://docs.nbnatlas.org/sensitive-species-list/. Please note sensitive species lists can vary across the UK. See Joyce, C. B., Vina-Herbon, C., Metcalfe, D. J. (2005). Biotic variation in coastal water bodies in Sussex, England: implications for saline lagoons. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 65(4), 633-644.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2005.07.006 for original source.