Douglass, James G., France, Kristin E., Richardson, J. Paul, and Duffy, J. Emmett. 2010. "Seasonal and interannual change in a Chesapeake Bay eelgrass community: insights into biotic and abiotic control of community structure." Limnology and Oceanography, 55, (4) 1499–1520. https://doi.org/10.4319/lo.2010.55.4.1499.
We characterized the seasonal and interannual variation in macrophytes, epiphytes, invertebrate herbivores, small demersal predators, and physicochemical characteristics of an eelgrass (Zostera marina) bed in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, over 10 yr, to explore the relative importance of abiotic and biotic forcing on community composition and abundance. Our hypotheses were (1) physicochemical drivers affect community structure directly, (2) bottom-up trophic control is evidenced by positive covariance among trophic levels, (3) top-down control generates inverse patterns of abundance at adjacent trophic levels, and (4) species diversity among herbivores contributes to temporal stability. Composition and abundance of eelgrass-associated species varied strongly among seasons and years. Much of this variation correlated with temperature and salinity anomalies, and multivariate analysis grouped communities roughly by season, supporting our first hypothesis. Severe seagrass loss during the hot summer of 2005 shifted the community toward a novel composition, but community structure rebounded within a year. Evidence for trophic control was mixed: selected taxa showed patterns consistent with top-down or bottom-up control, but these patterns generally disappeared at the level of whole years and entire trophic levels. Our ability to detect trophic effects may have been limited, however, by consumer movement or changing behavioral responses to resource availability and predation. There was also little evidence that diversity stabilized total herbivore abundance. Although consumer effects on lower levels were inconsistent, the strong physicochemical forcing of community structure supports suggestions that eelgrass communities are highly vulnerable to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate and hydrography.
