Abstract
Over the past few decades, the ecological environment in the Yellow Sea has changed greatly from the impacts of global climate change and anthropogenic activities. In the present study, the biodiversity and community structure of the macrobenthos in the Yellow Sea were examined and were compared with data from a half century ago. Both quantitative and qualitative (grab and trawl) data on the soft-sediment macrobenthos from 2007 were used to study and compare the composition, distribution, abundance and biomass. Agglomerative classification and multidimensional scaling methods were applied to identify the macrobenthic communities, and the structure of these communities was compared with characteristic species-designated communities that were sampled nearly 50 years ago. Multivariate methods were used to detect relationships among environmental variables and species distribution and community classifications. A total of 267 species were collected with 58 grab samples, and 311 species were collected at 32 trawl sites. Nine quantitative and five qualitative clusters from 2007 were identified. These were classified into two groups of communities: The deep-water communities remained Yellow Sea cold water mass communities in species composition and were dominated by cold water species. The shallow-water communities, including previously reported mixed communities and eurythermal communities, were dominated by widely distributed polychaetes, with most of the previously dominant species exhibiting decreased abundance or lack of presence. The depth, temperature and salinity were the major environmental variables influencing faunal patterns. The subset of depth and temperature exhibited the maximum correlation with the biotic matrix.
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10872-015-0319-z/MediaObjects/10872_2015_319_Fig1_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10872-015-0319-z/MediaObjects/10872_2015_319_Fig2_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10872-015-0319-z/MediaObjects/10872_2015_319_Fig3_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10872-015-0319-z/MediaObjects/10872_2015_319_Fig4_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10872-015-0319-z/MediaObjects/10872_2015_319_Fig5_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10872-015-0319-z/MediaObjects/10872_2015_319_Fig6_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10872-015-0319-z/MediaObjects/10872_2015_319_Fig7_HTML.gif)
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Brierley AS, Kingsford MJ (2009) Impacts of climate change on marine organisms and ecosystems. Curr Biol 19:R602–R614
Clarke KR (1993) Non-parametric multivariate analyses of changes in community structure. Austral Ecol 18:117–143
Clarke KR, Ainsworth M (1993) A method of linking multivariate community structure to environmental variables. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 92:205–219
Clarke KR, Warwick RM (1994) Change in marine communities: an approach to statistical analysis and interpretation. Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth
Clarke KR, Warwick RM (2001) Changes in marine communities: an approach to statistical analysis and interpretation. Primer-E, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK
Clifford HT, Stephenson W (1975) An introduction to numerical classification. Academic Press, New York
Colwell RK (2005) Estimates: statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples. Version 7.5. User’s Guide and application published at http://purl.oclc.org/estimates
Doney SC, Ruckelshaus M, Duffy JE, JPand B (2012) Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems. Ann Rev Mar Sci 4(4):11–37
Du JG, Cheung WWL, Chen B, Zhou QL, Yang SY, Ye GQ (2012) Progress and prospect of climate change and marine biodiversity. Biodivers Sci 20:745–754
Ellingsen KE (2002) Soft-sediment benthic biodiversity on the continental shelf in relation to environmental variability. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 232:15–27
Fraschetti S, Terlizzi A, Guarnieri G, Pizzolante Fand others (2011) Effects of unplanned development on marine biodiversity: a lesson from Albania (Central Mediterranean Sea). J Coast Res 106–115
Gaudette HE, Flight WR, Toner L, Folger DW (1974) An inexpensive titration method for the determination of organic carbon in recent sediments. J Sediment Res 44:249–253
Gray JS (1997) Marine biodiversity: patterns, threats and conservation needs. Biodivers Conserv 6:153–175
Gray JS, Elliott M (2009) Ecology of marine sediments: from science to management. Oxford University Press, New York
Hagberg J, Jonzén N, Lundberg P, Ripa J (2003) Uncertain biotic and abiotic interactions in benthic communities. Oikos 100:353–361
Halpern BS, Walbridge S, Selkoe KA, Kappel CV et al (2008) A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems. Science 319:948–952
Hiscock K, Southward A, Tittley I, Hawkins S (2004) Effects of changing temperature on benthic marine life in Britain and Ireland. Aquat Conserv Mar Freshw Ecosyst 14:333–362
Hoegh-Guldberg O, Bruno JF (2010) The impact of climate change on the world’s marine ecosystems. Science 328:1523–1528
Jackson JBC, Kirby MX, Berger WH, Bjorndal KA et al (2001) Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems. Science 293:629–637
James RJ, Smith MPL, Fairweather PG (1995) Sieve mesh-size and taxonomic resolution needed to describe natural spatial variation of marine macrofauna. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 118:187–198
Levin L, Caswell H, Bridges T, DiBacco C, Cabrera D, Plaia G (1996) Demographic responses of estuarine polychaetes to pollutants: life table response experiments. Ecol Appl 6:1295–1313
Li XZ, Wang HF, Wang JB, Zhang BL, Li BQ (2005) Comparison of sampling results of m acrobenthos using different apertures of sampling sieve in Jiaozhou Bay. Mar Sci 29:68–74
Liao YL, **ao N (2011) Species composition and faunal characteristics of echinoderms in China seas. Biodivers Sci 19:729–736
Lin C, Ning X, Su J, Lin Y, Xu B (2005) Environmental changes and the responses of the ecosystems of the Yellow Sea during 1976–2000. J Mar Syst 55:223–234
Liu RY (2008) Checklist of Marine Biota of China Seas. Science Press, Bei**g
Liu RY, Cui YH, Xu FS, Tang ZC (1983) Ecology of Macrobenthos of the East China Sea and adjacent waters. In: Proceedings of international symposium on sedimentation on the continental shelf: with special reference to the East China Sea. China Ocean Press, Bei**g, China, pp 795–818
Liu RY, Cui YH, Xu FS, Tang ZC (1986) Ecological characteristics of macrobenthos of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea. Stud Mar Sin 27:153–173
Lotze HK, Lenihan HS, Bourque BJ, Bradbury RH et al (2006) Depletion, degradation, and recovery potential of estuaries and coastal seas. Science 312:1806–1809
Nelson DW, Sommers LE (1982) Total carbon, organic carbon, and organic matter. In: Page AL (ed) Methods of soil analysis. Part 2, chemical and microbiological properties, Second Edition. Madison, Wisconsin USA, pp 539–579
Pearson TH, Rosenberg R (1978) Macrobenthic succession in relation to organic enrichment and pollution of the marine environment. Oceanogr Mar Biol Ann Rev 16:229–311
Schiel DR, Steinbeck JR, Foster MS (2004) Ten years of induced ocean warming causes comprehensive changes in marine benthic communities. Ecology 85:1833–1839
Snelgrove PVR (1997) The importance of marine sediment biodiversity in ecosystem processes. Ambio 26:578–583
Snelgrove PVR (1998) The biodiversity of macrofaunal organisms in marine sediments. Biodivers Conserv 7:1123–1132
Snelgrove PVR (1999) Getting to the bottom of marine biodiversity: sedimentary habitats—Ocean bottoms are the most widespread habitat on Earth and support high biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Bioscience 49:129–138
ter Braak CJF (1986) Canonical correspondence analysis: a new eigenvector technique for multivariate direct gradient analysis. Ecology 67:1167–1179
Thorson G (1957) Bottom communities (sublittoral or shallow shelf). In: Hedgepeth JW (ed) Treatise on marine ecology and paleoecology. Vol. 1. The Geological Society of America Menoir 67, Vol 1, Washington, pp 461–534
Warwick RM, Clarke KR (1994) Relearning the ABC: taxonomic changes and abundance/biomass relationships in disturbed benthic communities. Mar Biol 118:739–744
Worm B, Barbier EB, Beaumont N, Duffy JE et al (2006) Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services. Science 314:787–790
Xu FS, Zhang JL (2011) Characteristics of Bivalve diversity in typical habitats of China seas. Biodivers Sci 19:716–722
Xu ZL, Zhang D (2014) Dramatic declines in Euphausia pacifica abundance in the East China Sea: response to recent regional climate change. Zool Sci 31:135–142
Xu ZL, Ma ZL, Wu YM (2010) Peaked abundance of Calanus sinicus earlier shifted in the Changjiang River (Yangtze River) Estuary: a comparable study between 1959, 2002, and 2005. Acta Oceanol Sin 30:84–91
Zhang JL, Xu FS (2014) The biogeography of cold water bivalves in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea. In: Sun S, Adrianov AV, Lutaenko KA, Sun X (eds) Marine biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics of the Northwest Pacific Ocean. Science Press, Bei**g, pp 189–193
Zhang JL, Xu FS, Liu RY (2012) Community structure changes of macrobenthos in the South Yellow Sea. Chin J Oceanol Limnol 30:248–255
Acknowledgments
This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Ruiyu Liu (J. Y. Liu), who is considered the founder of marine benthic ecology in China. We would like to thank the crew of the R/V Kexue III. Many thanks to all the taxonomists in our institute for their help in identifying specimens. This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (No. 2011CB403604), Science and Technology Development Planning of Shandong Province (No. 2012GHY11537) and IOCAS funding (No. 2012IO060104).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, J., **ao, N., Zhang, S. et al. A comparative study on the macrobenthic community over a half century in the Yellow Sea, China. J Oceanogr 72, 189–205 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-015-0319-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-015-0319-z