Disturbance and Community Pattern of Polychaetes Inhabiting Valle Magnavacca (Valli di Comacchio,Northern Adriatic Sea,Italy)

Abstract. Polychaete community structure in Valle Magnavacca, the largest basin of the Valli di Comacchio (Northern Adriatic Sea) lagoonal ecosystem, was analyzed in a three‐year study. Three shallow‐water stations were sampled at about 3‐month intervals. Univariate and multivariate analyses were utilized to investigate community structure changes in relation to natural and man‐induced disturbance. The polychaete community at station 3, in the central area of the lagoon, was the most disturbed, while that of station 2 was the most well structured. We hypothesize that polychaete community structure results from regular seasonal disturbances which lead to almost predictable fluctuations in species abundance. Superimposed on these regular cycles are acute disturbance events that further reduce species abundance or exclude species from the habitat.     

Phosphorus metabolism in anthropogenically transformed lagoon ecosystems: The Comacchio lagoons (Ferrara, Italy)

Inorganic phosphorus dynamics were investigated with the use of ³²P in the hypertrophic Comacchio lagoons (NE Adriatic) during an extremely dense, quasi-permanent bloom of picocyanobacteria. Concentrations of dissolved inorganic phosphate (DIP) in waters of the blooming lagoons were usually near the detection limit (0.01 μmoles·dm⁻³). DIP uptake rates by microplankton at near-ambient concentrations (0.01 to 0.1 μmoles·dm⁻³) were in the range of 9.6 to 16.1 nmoles P·dm⁻³·min⁻¹, and turnover times were 1.5 to 3 min. The turnover time was >40 h in the eutrophic coastal waters of the adjacent Adriatic Sea. The uptake rate of DIP depended on its initial concentration. In water samples artificially enriched with DIP, the uptake rate rose to its maximum of 0.10 to 0.13 μmoles P·dm⁻³·min⁻¹ (or 6 to 7 μmoles·dm⁻³·h⁻¹) when the initial concentration of DIP was elevated to 10 to 20 μmoles·dm⁻³. The potential capacity of microplankton in the water samples to consume and retain DIP was estimated at 25 μmoles·dm⁻³. Specific features are discussed of phosphorus metabolism in the anthropogenically transformed lagoon ecosystem with an anomalous food web with few animals.     

Three main stressors acting on the Ria Formosa lagoonal system (Southern Portugal): Physical stress, organic matter pollution and the land–ocean gradient

During the last 15 years of the 20th century, several researchers carried out extensive sampling of benthic macrofauna communities in the Ria Formosa lagoon. The main objective of this paper is to discern the main communities of benthic fauna of the Ria Formosa and the leading stressors that limit them based on this large data set.The high species richness and high diversity values observed at most of the stations or groups of stations indicate a good ecological status, with the exception of the sewage-impacted areas and the physically stressed areas. It was possible to define three main stressors acting on the Ria Formosa. The most important is the physical stress imposed by the limited water renewal in some areas of the Ria Formosa. The second is the nutrient and organic matter pollution that is limited to the vicinity of the sewage outfall stations and to some locations of the Ria Formosa. This is due to the dual effects of the low residence time of water, but also due to a degradation of water quality in places of relatively restricted water circulation but with high primary production, symptoms of eutrophication. The third stressor is the natural land–ocean gradient, denoting the influence of seawater exchanges and emersion time, attenuated by the high water exchange rates of Ria Formosa.It was possible to differentiate the anthropogenic stress from the natural physical stress through the application of multivariate analysis. However, both structural (species richness and diversity indices) and functional indicators (trophic composition) indicate the same trend – low species richness, low diversity indices, and a community dominated by detritivores species at the locations characterized by high anthropogenic impact or by physical stress. The physically stressed areas were dominated by chironomid larvae and hydrobiid gastropods and the most polluted areas were dominated by oligochaetes, mainly tubificids.     

Methane sources,sinks and fluxes in a temperate tidal Lagoon: The Arcachon lagoon (SW France)

The Arcachon lagoon is a 156 km² temperate mesotidal lagoon dominated by tidal flats (66% of the surface area). The methane (CH₄) sources, sinks and fluxes were estimated from water and pore water concentrations, from chamber flux measurements at the sediment–air (low tide), sediment–water and water–air (high tide) interfaces, and from potential oxidation and production rate measurements in sediments. CH₄ concentrations in waters were maximal (500–1000 nmol l⁻¹) in river waters and in tidal creeks at low tide, and minimal in the lagoon at high tide (<50 nmol l⁻¹). The major CH₄ sources are continental waters and the tidal pumping of sediment pore waters at low tide. Methanogenesis occurred in the tidal flat sediments, in which pore water concentrations were relatively high (2.5–8.0 μmol l⁻¹). Nevertheless, the sediment was a minor CH₄ source for the water column and the atmosphere because of a high degree of anaerobic and aerobic CH₄ oxidation in sediments. Atmospheric CH₄ fluxes at high and low tide were low compared to freshwater wetlands. Temperate tidal lagoons appear to be very minor contributor of CH₄ to global atmosphere and to open ocean.     

Relationships between magmatism and tectonics in a continental rift: The Pantelleria Island region (Sicily Channel, Italy)

Field geological data of the Pantelleria Island, a large Late Quaternary volcano located in the Sicily Channel rift zone, integrated with offshore geophysical information, are used to derive the structural setting of the Island and the surrounding region, and to analyse the relationships between tectonics and magmatism. Field work shows that the principal faults exposed on the Island fall into two systems trending NNE–SSW and NW–SE. Mapped faults from offshore multichannel seismic profiles show similar trends, and some of them represent the offshore extension of the Pantelleria Island structures. The NW–SE faults bound the Pantelleria Graben, one of the three main depressions formed since the Late Miocene–Early Pliocene within the African continental platform, which compose the Sicily Channel rift zone. A 3-D Moho depth geometry, derived from inversion of Bouguer gravity data, shows a significant uplift of the discontinuity up to 16–17 km beneath the westernmost part of the Pantelleria Graben and beneath the Pantelleria Island; it lows rapidly to 24–25 km away from the graben north-eastward and south-westward. The Moho uplift could explain the presence of a shallow magma chamber in the southern part of the Island, where processes of magmatic differentiation are documented. Geological and geophysical data suggest that the northwestern part of the Sicily Channel is presently dominated by a roughly E–W directed extensional regime. Crustal cracking feeding the Quaternary volcanism could be also related to this extensional field that would be further responsible for the development of the N–S trending volcanic belt that extends in the Sicily Channel from Lampedusa Island to the Graham Bank. This mode of deformation is confirmed also by geodetic data. This implies that in the northwestern part of the Sicily Channel, the E–W extension replaced the NE–SW crustal stretching that originated the NW-trending tectonic depressions constituting the rift zone.     

Frequency analysis across the drowning of a Lower Jurassic carbonate platform: The Calcare Massiccio Formation (Apennines,Italy)

This work illustrates the evolution the Lower Jurassic shallow-water carbonates known as the Calcare Massiccio Formation in the Central Apennines (Italy). The Calcare Massiccio is characterized by lateral and vertical variability in the facies associations, related to an articulated physiography of the Triassic to Lower Jurassic carbonate platform and to its tectonic evolution. This work documents the depositional environment changes during the platform evolution. Quantitative analysis on samples collected from three stratigraphic sections were performed through the Calcare Massiccio succession allowed up to the overlying Pliensbachian pelagites. Two type of carbonate sedimentation have been recognized: in the peritidal and shallow subtidal environments (Calcare Massiccio A) the carbonate production is dominated by microbial activity, while the carbonate sedimentation in a deeper environment of middle to outer ramp (Calcare Massiccio B), is dominated by a bioclastic sedimentation.The evolution from the Calcare Massiccio A to the B can be interpreted as the product of increase of accommodation that in turn produced a backstepping of carbonate facies belt, the photic microbial dominated peritidal facies developed on the persistent Latium-Abruzzi Platform while the bioclastic carbonate production factory settled on the structural highs resulting from the dismembering of the platform by syn-sedimentary tectonic.The bioclastic carbonate factory was not efficient in filling the available accommodation space produced by Sinemurian extensional tectonic. This inefficiency was amplified by the restricted area available for this factory in the small structural highs. These conditions were sufficient to predispose the platform to the drowning without invoke change in the trophic resource or change in the palaeoceanography.     

The Effect of Temporal Changes and Environmental Trophic Condition on the Isotopic Composition (ω13C and ω15N) of Atherina boyeri (Risso, 1810) and Gobius niger (L., 1758) in a Mediterranean Coastal Lagoon (Lake of Sabaudia): Implications for Food Web Structure

Abstract. ω¹³C and ω¹⁵N of organic matter sources and consumers were employed to analyse trophic differentiation between a benthic consumer, Gobius niger (L., 1758) (Pisces, Osteichthyes), and a pelagic consumer, Atherina boyeri (Risso, 1810) (Pisces, Osteichthyes) in a Mediterranean coastal lagoon (Lake of Sabaudia) in winter and summer 1999. Trophic differences between the two species throughout the two sampling periods were related to the environmental trophic condition (i. e. nutrient and phytopigment concentrations). Although these two fish have different habitats, they both exploited benthic organisms, above all in summer. When the nutrient and phytopigment concentrations were higher (summer), the most abundant benthic organisms were the main food sources for both species. In winter A. boyeri apparently shifted its feeding preferences to include zooplankton, confirming its opportunistic feeding strategy. Par-ticulate organic matter and algae seemed to play the main trophic role in the food web structure. Benthic invertebrates used both sources, while zooplankton seemed to rely exclusively on the particulate fraction. The overlapping and very depleted signatures of sedimentary and particulate organic matter highlights a strong link between sediments and water column, rarely observed in other aquatic ecosystems using stable isotopes. Such a finding further substantiates the importance of particulate organic matter as a food source in the study area.     

Sedimentology and depositional architecture of tidal compound dunes on a carbonate ramp: The lower Miocene deposits of the central Apennine (Latium,Italy)

The sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy of the central Apennine lower Miocene carbonate deposits (Guadagnolo Formation) are the goal of this paper. The Guadagnolo carbonate ramp deposits consist of a thick succession of three main lithofacies: marls, marly limestones and cross-bedded limestones. The lateral and vertical facies distribution, as well as the biota assemblages, suggests a deposition of these sediments along the middle-outer ramp sector of the Latium-Abruzzi carbonate platform. All the data suggest sedimentation under the influence of tidal currents that were responsible of bedforms generation as simple and compound dunes. These bodies are developed on metric and decametric scale, and are stacked one to other to form complex sedimentary bodies extending both in strike and dip section for several tens to hundred meters. The dune system developed in a semiclosed basin (the Paleoadriatic sea), open in the southern and closed in the northern sector respectively. Within this basin a probably amphidromic system developed. The flow sediment transport was dominantly westward, and was conditioned by the ramp paleotopography. From a sequence stratigraphic point of view several high and low rank depositional sequences that were differentiated basing on their relative physical scale (thickness of each unit) and on the lateral extension of the unconformities and the correlative conformities bounding them were recognized. The hierarchy of recognized sequence-stratigraphic units include, from the smallest to the largest: simple depositional sequences, low-rank composite depositional sequences and high-rank composite depositional sequences. In the Guadagnolo succession four high-rank composite depositional sequences having a duration variable from 0.9 to 1.6 Ma, and named Guadagnolo 1, 2, 3, and 4, were recognized. These high-rank composite sequences are internally constituted by a stacking of simple and low-rank composite depositional sequences, having a duration ranging from 40 ka to 200 ka. All these units constitute part of a higher-rank composite sequence developing between 21 and 14.80 Ma that we name “The Guadagnolo Depositional Sequence”. The wedge-shaped geometry, the thickness variation and the stacking pattern of the Guadagnolo succession are the response to eustasy and tectonic subsidence. The glacial eustasy mostly controlled the formation of the high-frequency depositional sequences, tectonic subsidence, related to the roll-back of the hinge west-directed subduction in turn connected to the advancement of the Apennine thrust modulated the accommodation space.     

The operational sex ratio of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus populations: the case of the Mediterranean marine protected area of Ustica Island (Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy)

We investigated, with a series of field and laboratory observations, the possible effect of the starfish Marthasteria glacialis predation on the operational sex ratio (OSR), i.e. the number of sexually mature males divided by the total number of sexually mature adults of both sexes at any one time, of the edible sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus . The OSR was estimated three times during the sea urchin summer spawning period (July 2004, June 2005 and July 2006) on barren substrates of Ustica Island Marine Protected Area (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy). Four sites were selected: two characterized by high M. glacialis density (take zone C) and two controls with low starfish density (no-take zone A). Mature sea urchins were independently collected by SCUBA diving and sexed. The adult sex ratio was skewed towards males at high M. glacialis density sites, whereas it was balanced (1:1) at predator low-density sites. Results of sex-selective feeding experiments in the laboratory showed that females of P. lividus were more vulnerable to M. glacialis predation. These outcomes underline the possible importance of M. glacialis in regulating the OSR of P. lividus populations.