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Are tropical coastal reefs sinks or sources of mesozooplankton? A case study in a Brazilian marine protected area

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Abstract

In spite of the paramount ecological and socioeconomic relevance of tropical reef ecosystems, the dynamics of their meroplankton abundance remain poorly characterized. The small-scale distribution and detailed analysis of individual biomass of mesozooplankton were studied in the coastal reefs of Tamandaré (Brazil). Mesozooplankton (> 300 μm) was collected during nocturnal ebb tides at new moon, using three different devices to sample at three different environments: a standard ring net that was towed at subsurface, the Channel Midwater Neuston Net that collected at midwater in channels between patch reefs and the Reef Edge Net that captured organisms that are washed by ebb currents from reef tops toward the reef edge. Samples were analyzed using a ZooScan to obtain abundances and biovolume of each taxonomic group. Specific biomass measurements were taken to obtain allometric equations used to calculate zooplankton biomass from biovolume. The mesozooplankton were significantly more abundant at subsurface and at the reef edge compared to channel environments. The high abundance of organisms at reef edges suggests a low predation pressure on zooplankton at near-bottom areas, since the reefs of Tamandaré present a low coverage of planktivorous corals, being dominated by macroalgae. These results show that rather than sinks these ecosystems may be considered important sources of zooplankton available for planktivorous species. Regarding zooplankton composition, we found large amounts of initial stages of meroplanktonic larvae and newly hatched fish eggs, which presented consistently greater abundances compared to holoplankton and emergent benthic taxa. Decapod larvae were the most abundant group of the meroplankton, but cirripedian nauplii, stomatopod larvae, fish larvae and fish eggs were also abundant. More than 50% of the total biomass was due to meroplankton taxa, mainly composed of decapod larvae. This study indicates that the contribution of meroplankton to mesozooplankton composition and biomass off tropical reefs may have been underestimated.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mauro Maida, Beatrice Padovani Ferreira, the Tamandaré Municipality and the CEPENE/ICMBio research center for logistical support, and the Brazilian National Council for the Improvement of Higher Education (CAPES) for the Ph.D. scholarship granted to the first author. We thank Laisa Madureira for chlorophyll a readings, Jana Santana for identifying fish larvae and Dr. Marcus Silva for processing the S4 current data. Thanks to Amanda Elineau for helping us in the use of the EcoTaxa Platform. The authors would like to thank the PIQv-platform of EMBRC-France, a national Research Infrastructure supported by ANR, under the reference ANR-10-INSB-02. Many thanks to Marc Picheral (LOV, France) and Sylvain Fèvre (Hydroptic, France) for assistance with the ZooScan equipment and the ZooProcess software. The authors thank the Brazilian ministry for the environment (MMA) for SISBIO Permits Nos. 38428 and 34067. We thank all people involved in the fieldwork and laboratory analyses, especially CEPENE’s boat drivers, Andrea Pinto, Morgana Brito, Sigrid Neumann Leitão and all students and colleagues at the Zooplankton Laboratory at UFPE’s Oceanography Department for their enthusiastic support. Thanks to the National Council for the Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq—Grant No. 471038/2012-1) and INCT AmbTropic (CNPq/CAPES/FAPESB) for funding the fieldwork. The last author received a research productivity grant from CNPq. The authors thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful corrections, suggestions and comments.

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  1. Department of Oceanography, Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Cidade Universitária, Recife, PE, 50670-901, Brazil

    Gleice S. Santos & Ralf Schwamborn

  2. Sorbonne Université CNRS, UMR 7093, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de, Villefranche-sur-Mer (LOV), Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

    Lars Stemmann & Fabien Lombard

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  1. Gleice S. Santos
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Correspondence to Gleice S. Santos.

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 21 kb)

338_2019_1860_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 2 - Relative abundance (%) of zooplankton major groups sampled close to Pirambú and Ilha da Barra patch reefs at reef edge, channels and subsurface environments around the reefs of Tamandaré (northeastern Brazil). Data provided by each sampling day. The others contains: Hydrozoa, Siphonophorae, Gastropoda, Polychaeta, Cirripedia (nauplii), Belzebub faxoni (decapod shrimp), Euphausiacea and Ostracoda. (TIFF 3969 kb)

338_2019_1860_MOESM3_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 3 - Relative biomass (%) of zooplankton major groups sampled close to Pirambú and Ilha da Barra patch reefs at reef edge, channels and subsurface environments around the reefs of Tamandaré (northeastern Brazil). Data provided by each sampling day. The others contains: Hydrozoa, Siphonophorae, Gastropoda, Polychaeta, Cirripedia (nauplii), Belzebub faxoni (decapod shrimp), Euphausiacea and Ostracoda. (TIFF 4443 kb)

338_2019_1860_MOESM4_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 4 – Abundance (ind m−3) of the total zooplankton sampled close to Pirambú and Ilha da Barra patch reefs at reef edge, channels and subsurface environments around the reefs of Tamandaré (northeastern Brazil). Data provided by each sampling day. (TIFF 2314 kb)

338_2019_1860_MOESM5_ESM.tif

Supplementary material 5 - Biomass (µg C m−3) of the main zooplankton groups sampled at reef edge, channels and subsurface environments around the reefs of Tamandaré (northeastern Brazil). Gelatinous contains: Hydrozoa and Siphonophorae. (TIFF 2669 kb)

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Santos, G.S., Stemmann, L., Lombard, F. et al. Are tropical coastal reefs sinks or sources of mesozooplankton? A case study in a Brazilian marine protected area. Coral Reefs 38, 1107–1120 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-019-01860-2

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