Variation in macrobenthic community of vegetated and unvegetated habitats in a macrotidal estuary of northern Brazilian Amazon coast

Abstract

Comparisons among vegetated and unvegetated intertidal habitats have led to the paradigm that benthic fauna are more abundant and diverse in the former. Mangroves and their associated saltmarshes are the dominant vegetation type in intertidal zones of the Ajuruteua Peninsula, northern Brazil, however until now, there no studies that investigate the benthic fauna among vegetated and unvegetated intertidal habitats. Therefore, the present study compares the macrobenthic fauna among red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), saltmarsh (Spartina alterniflora) and adjacent unvegetated sediment (mangrove borders and saltmarsh borders) in the Furo Grande tidal channel in the Caeté estuary, northern Brazil. Overall, vegetated habitats have finer sediments, lower salinities and temperatures and higher organic matter and water content than unvegetated habitats. However, the macrofauna structure among the habitats did not fully correspond to this division, perhaps responding instead to differences among the four habitats in detrital production, tidal inundation frequency, leaf litter processing by crabs and rates of predation. Deposit feeding tubificid oligochaetes and capitellid polychaetes were particularly abundant in the mangrove and at mangrove borders probably due to greater availability of suitably processed detritus.