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Perturbation and Recovery Patterns of Starfish-Dominated Intertidal Assemblages in Chile, New Zealand, and Washington State

1985; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 125; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/284371

1537-5323

Robert T. Paine, Juan Carlos Soto del Castillo, Juan M. Cancino,

Marine Biology and Ecology Research

When starfish are removed from small portions (<63-m 2 areas) of certain marine communities, mussels increase the percentage of space that they occupy. When compared to other studies in New Zealand and Washington State, new results from Chile indicate that none of these assemblages is stable when perturbed in this fashion. That is, all attain a different state within relatively brief periods. When starfish were permitted to return, we observed two different recovery patterns. In Chile, the experimental site converged rapidly toward the undisturbed control; at the other sites, mussels too large to be eaten by starfish continued to dominate the space. The results indicate the importance of size escapes from predation for marine communities. Whether these persistent, but diminishing in spatial coverage, stands of mussels are alternative stable states or not is dependent on the definition of stability employed.