Assessing ecological community health in coastal estuarine systems impacted by multiple stressors
- Author
- J.I.Ellis, J.E.Hewitt, D.Clark, C.Taiapa, M.Patterson, J.Sinner, D.Hardy, S.F.Thrush
- Year
- 2015
- Journal / Source
- Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
- Volume
- 473
- Month
- December
- Pages
- 176-187
- Keywords
- Canonical ordination Cumulative impacts Community health Multiple stressors Interactions
- Summary
- Highlights • Distance-based linear modelling identified sediments, nutrients and heavy metals as key ‘stressors’ affecting the ecology of our study harbour. • We developed multivariate models to identify key stressors affecting the ‘health’ of estuarine macrofaunal communities. • The multivariate models were found to be more sensitive to changing environmental health than simple univariate measures. • These models should enable long-term degradative change from multiple disturbances to be assessed.