Description of Bivalve Community Structure in the Croatian Part of the Adriatic Sea - Hydraulic Dredge Survey
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ISSN: 0001-5113 ACTA ADRIAT., UDC: 594.1 (497.5) (262.3) AADRAY 51(2): 141 - 158, 2010 Description of bivalve community structure in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea - hydraulic dredge survey Melita Peharda*, daria ezgeta-Balić, Nedo Vrgoč, igor isajloVić and danijela BogNer Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, P. O. Box 500, 21 000 Split, Croatia *Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected] Hydraulic dredge surveys of bivalve communities in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea were conducted from the Island of Rab in the north to the river Neretva estuary in the south during 2007 and 2008. The main objective of the study was to describe distribution and community structure of bivalves on soft sediments along the eastern Adriatic, primarily focusing on commercially important species in five main bivalve harvesting areas. A total of 105 hydraulic dredge samples were collected at depths ranging from 1 to 11 m. Sampled bivalves were separated in the field and frozen for later laboratory analysis that included species identification, abundance and biomass determination. Live specimens of 54 bivalve taxa were collected during this study, while 87 taxa were represented by empty shells. Shells of the non-indigenous bivalve anadara demiri were recorded for the first time in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea. In terms of biomass and abundance the dominant species were acanthocardia tuberculata, Callista chione, Chamelea gallina, glycymeris bimaculata, g. glycymeris, g. violascens, laevicardium oblongum, Modiolus barbatus, Mytilus galloprovincialis, ostrea edulis and Venus verrucosa. Statistically significant differences were noted in bivalve communities in the five main sampling areas including the island of Rab, Pag bay, Kaštela bay, Cetina estuary and Neretva estuary. Key words: bivalvia, distribution, adriatic sea, hydraulic dredge INTRODUCTION rants, benthic corers, grab samplers, dredging and trawling gear, and underwater photography although bivalves are an ecologically and and tV (gosliNg, 2003). each of these methods economically important marine group of organ- has its advantages and disadvantages depend- isms relatively little is known about their distri- ing on the main objectives of the survey, the bution and community structure in the eastern surface area to be surveyed, substrate type and adriatic sea. Previous studies focused primarily target species (gosliNg, 2003). sampling with on compiling lists of species for specific regions a dredge enables the surveying of wider geo- (hrs-BreNko et al., 1998; Šiletić, 2006) or aspects graphic areas in a reasonable time and provides of the biology and ecology of selected species general information about the marine communi- (MladiNeo et al., 2007; Peharda et al., 2007). ties (Castelli et al., 2004). in the eastern adriatic, Methods for surveying the distribution and jukić et al. (1998) conducted a survey using a abundance of bivalves include the use of quad- hydraulic dredge and provided general data on 142 ACTA ADRIATICa, 51(1): 141 - 158, 2010 the distribution of several commercially impor- site and substrate: 11 mm (1), 20 mm (2) and 8 tant bivalves such as Chamelea gallina, Venus mm (3). verrucosa and Callista chione. Collected samples were frozen and stored in Croatia, bivalves are primarily harvested for laboratory analysis that included species by sCuBa and apnea diving, while rampon identification, abundance and biomass determi- (beam trawl) and hydraulic dredge use is limited nation. Biomass (wet weight) and abundance to the northern open adriatic sea. in the last values were reported per square meter (g/m2 decade an increase in exploitation of natural and ind/m2, respectively). abundance and bio- bivalve populations has occurred in the Croatian mass values are presented as mean values per part of the adriatic (MatijaCa, pers. comm.) and location. in the laboratory, the collected bivalves there is the potential that overexploitation of were identified according to teBBle (1966), Nor- this important marine resource will occur in dsieCk (1969), PareNzaN (1974, 1976), d’aNgelo the near future. therefore, the objective of the & gargiullo (1987), Poutiers (1987) and PoPPe present study was to determine the distribution & GOTO (2000), while for classification and no- of bivalves on soft sediments along the eastern menclature purposes the european register of adriatic and to describe their community struc- Marine species was used (Costello et al., 2001). ture, primarily focusing on commercially impor- live individuals of each species were counted tant species in the five main bivalve harvest- and weighed, while the presence of empty shells ing areas. the aim of the study was to collect by species was noted. baseline data needed for setting up a permanent grain-size fractions of surface sediment monitoring of bivalve resources. were determined with the combined method of sieving and hydrometering. sediment type was MATERIAL AND METHODS determined according to the Folk (1954) clas- sification. gravimetric methods were used to Field surveys were conducted by hydraulic determine organic matter and carbonate content dredge “vongolara” during 2007 and 2008 in (VdoVić, 1990; LORING & RANTALA, 1992). sedi- order to collect data on composition, distribu- ment data are presented as general descriptions tion and biomass of shellfish communities in the of the surveyed sites and due to unbalanced sam- eastern adriatic. in total, 105 quantitative sam- pling design no attempt was made to statistically ples were collected at depths ranging from 1 to link sediment and bivalve data. 11 m, from the island of rab in the north to the Bivalve assemblage structures at five main Neretva river estuary in the south (Fig. 1). sam- sampling areas including the island of rab pling started in august 2007 in the Neretva area, (sahara beach, rajska beach, kamporska draga, continued in May 2008 in the Cetina river estu- and Barbat channel), Pag bay, kaštela bay (Pan- ary and in kaštela bay and ended with sampling tan, jadro mouth and Barbarinac), Cetina estu- around the islands of Pag and rab in october ary and Neretva estuary were analyzed using the and November 2008. sampling locations were PriMer software package (Clarke & WarWiCk, chosen according to previous studies (jukić et al. 1994). Biomass data, expressed as wet weight 1998) and current information on bivalve harvest- of bivalves, were transformed using log(x+1) ing (Furčić, pers. comm.). the number of hauls at transformation and the Bray-Curtis similarity different locations was determined on site de- matrix was used to generate a 2-dimensional pending on size of the area surveyed, sediment ordination plot with the non-metric multidi- type and results of previous hauls. the horizon- mensional scaling (nMds) technique. aNosiM tal dredge opening was 2.2 m and the length of 1-way test was applied for testing differences in haul varied from 25 to 40 m. Cutting depth of the species assemblages between sampling stations blade was 15 cm and average haul duration was (CLARKE & WARWiCk, 1994). the probability 5 minutes. three types of grid distances (parallel value was set at 0.05. bar spacing) were used, depending on sampling PehARdA et al.: description of bivalve community structure in the Croatian part of the adriatic sea 143 Fig. 1. Geographic location of the investigated area: A. Adriatic Sea, B. Island of Rab, C. Island of Pag, D. Kaštela bay and Cetina estuary and E. Neretva river estuary 144 Table 1. Sediment characteristics at sampling areas. Dredge type - grid distances used: 11 mm (type 1), 20 mm (type 2), 8 mm (type 3), Mz – mean particle size Organic Dredge N of N of sed. Mz Gravel Sand Mud Sediment Carbonate Location Area Date matter type hauls samples (μm) (%) (%) (%) type* (g/kg) (g/kg) sahara beach rab 11.08. 3 3 2 50.31 2 49 49 (g)ms 33.44 120.00 rajska beach rab 11.08. 3 3 1 130.61 0 96 4 s 7.99 30.00 kamporska draga rab 11.08. 2 4 2 106.47 0 82 18 ms 12.45 73.64 Barbat channel rab 10.08. 2 4 2 507.35 16 75 9 gms 15.67 768.34 Pag bay Pag 10.08. 2 16 6 557.54 16 69 15 gms 13.72 798.82 Vir 10.08. 2 3 1 59.81 5 61 34 (g)ms 33.64 728.50 A C Pag-Vir 10.08. 2 2 1 248.27 2 89 9 (g)s 26.30 775.07 TA ADRIATI jasenovo bay 10.08. 2 6 1 46.61 4 54 42 (g)ms 35.91 699.38 starigrad-Paklenica 10.08. 2 5 3 1122.68 29 42 29 gms 29.96 781.01 Nin bay 10.08. 2 7 2 160.41 5 84 11 gms 10.74 659.99 C stara Povljana 10.08. 2 7 5 501.03 23 60 17 gms 24.54 750.12 a , 51(1): 141 - 158, 2010 Vlašić bay 10.08. 2 7 2 224.73 3 84 13 (g)ms 14.43 742.87 Pantan kaštela 05.08. 1 3 1 21.25 3 54 43 (g)ms 41.90 603.00 jadro mouth kaštela 05.08. 1 3 1 20.38 4 52 44 (g)ms 62.20 537.00 Barbarinac kaštela 05.08. 1 3 2 30.45 5 46 49 (g)sM 40.20 700.00 Cetina estuary Cetina 05.08. 1-2 19 3 70.24 4 62 34 (g)ms 26.60 672.27 Neretva estuary – Neretva 08.07. 1 8 - sand Neretva estuary – Neretva 08.07. 1 2 - sea grass *sediment types: s-sand; ms-muddy sand; gms- gravelly muddy sand; (g)s- slightly gravelly sand; (g)sM-slightly gravelly sandy mud; (g)ms- slightly gravelly muddy sand PehARdA et al.: description of bivalve community structure in the Croatian part of the adriatic sea 145 RESULTS sediment characteristics including data on sedi- ment composition, sediment type, organic mat- ter content and carbonates are presented in table 1.