Long-term trajectories of deep artificial rock pool communities in a port infrastructure
Abstract
Eco-engineering practices are increasingly implemented in urbanised marine coastal zones to enhance local marine biodiversity, as part of biodiversity offsetting efforts in areas impacted by human activities. Broad-scale, long-term monitoring studies remain scarce in this field yet are essential for robustly assessing the ecological value of these compensation initiatives. In 2019, the Port of Brest (France) constructed a 14-ha polder contained by a 900-m rocky revetment, for the reception, pre-construction, and transportation of offshore wind turbine components. To enhance marine biodiversity, 100 artificial rock pools were embedded in the dyke revetment at different intertidal levels. The benthic communities of 27 pools distributed across three dyke sectors (western, central, and eastern) were monitored from 2021 to 2025 during winter and summer spring tides using Rapid Assessment Surveys. Seven years after installation, rockpool communities appear to have reached a late successional mature stage, with high intertidal pools exhibiting the greatest taxon richness and the highest number of indicator species. Ecological trajectories were directionally consistent across intertidal levels, with high intertidal communities showing a more advanced successional stage relative to medium and low levels. Emersion regime and thermal variability were identified as the primary drivers of community composition, with dyke sector and pool orientation as secondary but significant structuring variables. Non-indigenous species (NIS) were present in all three intertidal levels, with most persisting over the entire survey period, a trend consistent with the biotic acceptance hypothesis. These findings demonstrate that long-term, spatially replicated monitoring is essential for soundly evaluating the ecological dynamics of eco-engineered structures and assessing their value as biodiversity compensation measures.
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BibTeX
@article{enriquenavarro2026longterm,
title = {{Long-term trajectories of deep artificial rock pool communities in a port infrastructure}},
author = {Angélica Enrique-Navarro and Antoine Carlier and Gabin Droual and Thomas Burel and Amelia Curd},
journal = {Journal of Environmental Management},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.131002},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05803029v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Long-term trajectories of deep artificial rock pool communities in a port infrastructure
AU - Angélica Enrique-Navarro
AU - Antoine Carlier
AU - Gabin Droual
AU - Thomas Burel
AU - Amelia Curd
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
JO - Journal of Environmental Management
DO - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.131002
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05803029v1
AB - Eco-engineering practices are increasingly implemented in urbanised marine coastal zones to enhance local marine biodiversity, as part of biodiversity offsetting efforts in areas impacted by human activities. Broad-scale, long-term monitoring studies remain scarce in this field yet are essential for robustly assessing the ecological value of these compensation initiatives. In 2019, the Port of Brest (France) constructed a 14-ha polder contained by a 900-m rocky revetment, for the reception, pre-construction, and transportation of offshore wind turbine components. To enhance marine biodiversity, 100 artificial rock pools were embedded in the dyke revetment at different intertidal levels. The benthic communities of 27 pools distributed across three dyke sectors (western, central, and eastern) were monitored from 2021 to 2025 during winter and summer spring tides using Rapid Assessment Surveys. Seven years after installation, rockpool communities appear to have reached a late successional mature stage, with high intertidal pools exhibiting the greatest taxon richness and the highest number of indicator species. Ecological trajectories were directionally consistent across intertidal levels, with high intertidal communities showing a more advanced successional stage relative to medium and low levels. Emersion regime and thermal variability were identified as the primary drivers of community composition, with dyke sector and pool orientation as secondary but significant structuring variables. Non-indigenous species (NIS) were present in all three intertidal levels, with most persisting over the entire survey period, a trend consistent with the biotic acceptance hypothesis. These findings demonstrate that long-term, spatially replicated monitoring is essential for soundly evaluating the ecological dynamics of eco-engineered structures and assessing their value as biodiversity compensation measures.
SN - 0301-4797
SN - 1095-8630
ER -