Dinâmica dos padrões sucessionais do macrofitobentos em áreas marinhas sob diferentes regimes de proteção

Abstract

Reefs ecosystems have high biological diversity, but they have suffered many impacts resulting from human activities. These anthropogenic stressors may promote particular impacts on reef benthic communities, which are often structured by sessile organisms. Thus, knowledge about the community structure of phytobenthos have been used as the basis for the assessment of environmental impacts in many marine environments. In the case of reefs, changes in nutrient concentrations, as well as overfishing, have been described as the greatest responsible for the damages to the structure of this ecosystem. Thus, several studies have been conducted in order to better understand the role of herbivory and nutrient enrichment on the structure of seaweed communities. In this context, the present study was to analyze the patterns of colonization and succession of the phytobenthos, as well as the influence of herbivory, especially the reef fish on these processes. Thus, this study was divided into two chapters, the first being: "Assessment of patterns of colonization and succession of the phytobenthos in reef communities in Paraíba coast." The assay used artificial substrates, and was conducted within the boundaries of a marine reserve (Parque Estadual Marinho de Areia VermelhaPEMAV) and an adjacent location that has similar biotic characteristics; and showed that the colonization of different groups over time is probably related with biological characteristics of the species (life cycle, morphological structure and reproductive strategies). The second chapter, entitled " The influence of herbivorous fish species on patterns of colonization and succession of phytobenthos in reef ecosystems," indicates that the group of herbivores did not affect the structure of the phytobenthos community present in PEMAV, a situation which is possibly related to overfishing and degradation of the coastal reefs in Paraíba, which alter the structure of the fish and phytobenthic communities.