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Seasonal benthic patterns in a glacial Patagonian fjord: the role of suspended sediment and terrestrial organic matter

2016; Inter-Research; Volume: 561; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3354/meps11903

1616-1599

Eduardo Quiroga, Pablo Nicolás Ortiz, Rodrigo González-Saldias, Brian Reid, Fabián J. Tapia, Iván Pérez‐Santos, Lorena Rebolledo, Roberto Mansilla, C Pineda, Ilia Cari, Nicolás del Cuerpo Salinas, Américo Montiel, D. W. Gerdes,

Marine and coastal ecosystems

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 561:31-50 (2016) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11903 Seasonal benthic patterns in a glacial Patagonian fjord: the role of suspended sediment and terrestrial organic matter Eduardo Quiroga1,2,*, Paula Ortiz3,4, Rodrigo González-Saldías2,5,6, Brian Reid3, Fabián J. Tapia2,6, Iván Pérez-Santos2,7, Lorena Rebolledo2,8,9, Rodrigo Mansilla2, Carlos Pineda4, Ilia Cari4, Nicole Salinas1, Américo Montiel10, Dieter Gerdes11 1Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV), Escuela de Ciencias del Mar, Valparaíso, Chile 2COPAS Sur-Austral, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile 3Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas de la Patagonia (CIEP), Coyhaique, Chile 4Programa de Magister en Oceanografía, Escuela de Ciencias del Mar, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV), Valparaíso, Chile 5Unidad de Biotecnología Marina, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanográficas, Universidad de Concepción, Chile 6Departamento de Oceanografía, Universidad de Concepción, Chile 7Centro I-Mar, Universidad de Los Lagos, Puerto Montt, Chile 8Instituto Antártico Chileno (INACH), Punta Arenas, Chile 9Centro FONDAP de Investigación de Ecosistemas de Altas Latitudes (IDEAL), Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile 10Instituto de la Patagonia, Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile 11Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany *Corresponding author: eduardo.quiroga@pucv.cl ABSTRACT: Complex marine-terrestrial interactions characterize Chilean fjords, where benthic communities influence the distribution of organic matter (OM). We examined spatial and seasonal changes in the hydrography, sediment conditions and soft-bottom macrobenthic, meiobenthic, and total microbial biomass in a glacial Patagonian fjord (Martinez Channel, Chile). The transport of a high load of glacial mineral and particulate OM to the fjord in the austral summer coincided with low total live benthic biomass. Multivariate analysis evidenced temporal-related macrofaunal groups influenced by the different environments produced by the advection of sediment transport and terrestrial OM from the Baker River, Chile. The relationships between density/biomass and respiration versus body size varied considerably with distance from major riverine inputs, but the slopes of density size spectra and normalized biomass size spectra were less negative in summer than in winter. Occasional large-scale advective processes in the water column affected sediment conditions and removed surface macrofauna, influencing the slope and intercept of the regression models. In the outer fjord, lateral advection and subsequent sedimentation of terrestrial OM contributed a significant fraction to total OM sediments (<14.76%). Stable carbon isotopes measured in benthic organisms suggest that benthic communities in the inner fjord may assimilate a significant fraction of terrestrial OM via heterotrophic bacteria in contrast to the minor input of terrestrial OM in the outer fjord. KEY WORDS: Macrofauna · Meiofauna · Total microbial biomass · Stable isotopes · Trophic structure Full text in pdf format Supplementary materialCorrigendum PreviousNextCite this article as: Quiroga E, Ortiz P, González-Saldías R, Reid B and others (2016) Seasonal benthic patterns in a glacial Patagonian fjord: the role of suspended sediment and terrestrial organic matter. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 561:31-50. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11903 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 561. Online publication date: December 15, 2016 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2016 Inter-Research.