Linking marine benthic biodiversity and ecosystem functions related to carbon cycling in a continental mud depocenter
- 1Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (Bremerhaven, Germany)
Abstract
The importance of carbon storage in continental seafloor sediments is increasingly recognized, yet the role of benthic macrofaunal biodiversity in the regulation of these processes remains poorly understood. Benthic macrofauna contributes to organic carbon cycling through respiration and secondary production, while sediment reworking (bioturbation) and ventilation (bioirrigation) by infauna promote the redistribution and remineralization of organic matter in sediments. Here, we investigated how benthic community structure, functional traits, and the relationship between biodiversity and calculated potential ecosystem functioning related to carbon cycling vary along environmental gradients in muddy sediments of the southeastern North Sea. Based on 171 macrofaunal taxa collected from 50 stations, hierarchical clustering based on abundance data categorized the macrofaunal communities into four distinct structural groups. Distance-based redundancy analysis (dbRDA) revealed that community functional composition was primarily structured by bottom hydrodynamics (salinity and bottom shear stress) and sediment characteristics (sorting, skewness, kurtosis, and D50). Biomass-weighted functional trait vectors, mapped onto a non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) space, showed a clear structural shift with communities in the deep clusters being dominated by mobile biodiffusors and subsurface filter feeders, whereas shallow clusters were characterized by less mobile, surface-modifying bivalves and polychaetes. These contrasting patterns led to pronounced differences in calculated potential ecosystem functioning: bioturbation and bioirrigation potentials were significantly higher in deeper communities, whereas the calculated community secondary production and respiration were higher in shallow communities. Across all stations, community secondary production and respiration increased with taxonomic and functional richness, while bioturbation and bioirrigation potentials were negatively related to biodiversity and community evenness. Interaction regressions and simple slope analyses revealed that environmental gradients significantly modulated the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships. Our findings demonstrate that environmental gradients fundamentally shape both benthic community structure and the link between biodiversity and essential ecosystem functions related to carbon dynamics in fine-grained sediment and organic matter in shelf sea systems.
Versions
Related
- Aquaculture and biodiversity-ecosystem functioning: A path to lay the foundations of ecosystem-based approach.
- French biodiversity data hub : linking local to global biodiversity through international initiatives and open science clouds [résumé]
- Linking Plant Community Characteristics and Soil Properties Under Grazing Disturbance in a Desert Steppe Ecosystem
- Syntropic farming systems for reconciling productivity, ecosystem functions, and restoration
- Prolonged magmatism and growth of the Iran-Anatolia Cadomian continental arc segment in Northern Gondwana
BibTeX
@article{tung2026linking,
title = {{Linking marine benthic biodiversity and ecosystem functions related to carbon cycling in a continental mud depocenter}},
author = {Chueh-Chen Tung and Moritz Holtappels and Alexa Wrede and Male Köster and Lasse Sander and Jan Beermann and Vera Sidorenko and Lars Gutow},
journal = {Biogeosciences},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5194/bg-23-7129-2026},
url = {https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/23/7129/2026/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Linking marine benthic biodiversity and ecosystem functions related to carbon cycling in a continental mud depocenter
AU - Chueh-Chen Tung
AU - Moritz Holtappels
AU - Alexa Wrede
AU - Male Köster
AU - Lasse Sander
AU - Jan Beermann
AU - Vera Sidorenko
AU - Lars Gutow
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
JO - Biogeosciences
DO - 10.5194/bg-23-7129-2026
UR - https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/23/7129/2026/
AB - The importance of carbon storage in continental seafloor sediments is increasingly recognized, yet the role of benthic macrofaunal biodiversity in the regulation of these processes remains poorly understood. Benthic macrofauna contributes to organic carbon cycling through respiration and secondary production, while sediment reworking (bioturbation) and ventilation (bioirrigation) by infauna promote the redistribution and remineralization of organic matter in sediments. Here, we investigated how benthic community structure, functional traits, and the relationship between biodiversity and calculated potential ecosystem functioning related to carbon cycling vary along environmental gradients in muddy sediments of the southeastern North Sea. Based on 171 macrofaunal taxa collected from 50 stations, hierarchical clustering based on abundance data categorized the macrofaunal communities into four distinct structural groups. Distance-based redundancy analysis (dbRDA) revealed that community functional composition was primarily structured by bottom hydrodynamics (salinity and bottom shear stress) and sediment characteristics (sorting, skewness, kurtosis, and D50). Biomass-weighted functional trait vectors, mapped onto a non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) space, showed a clear structural shift with communities in the deep clusters being dominated by mobile biodiffusors and subsurface filter feeders, whereas shallow clusters were characterized by less mobile, surface-modifying bivalves and polychaetes. These contrasting patterns led to pronounced differences in calculated potential ecosystem functioning: bioturbation and bioirrigation potentials were significantly higher in deeper communities, whereas the calculated community secondary production and respiration were higher in shallow communities. Across all stations, community secondary production and respiration increased with taxonomic and functional richness, while bioturbation and bioirrigation potentials were negatively related to biodiversity and community evenness. Interaction regressions and simple slope analyses revealed that environmental gradients significantly modulated the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships. Our findings demonstrate that environmental gradients fundamentally shape both benthic community structure and the link between biodiversity and essential ecosystem functions related to carbon dynamics in fine-grained sediment and organic matter in shelf sea systems.
SN - 1726-4189
ER -