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Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Cross-boundary effects of human impacts on animal assemblages in the coastal zone
Biodiversity and Conservation, Vol.33, pp.3039-3055
2024
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
Abstract Human impacts on ecosystems often transcend ecosystem boundaries and environmental realms, complicating ecosystem assessment, conservation, and management. Whether and how different impacts affect ecosystems in distinct but adjacent domains remains untested in many settings, and is rarely tested concurrently at the same spatial scales. In this study, we quantified the effects of coastal urbanisation on the structure of terrestrial coastal vertebrate assemblages (including birds, reptiles and mammals using baited trail cameras) and marine surf zone fish assemblages (using baited underwater videography) at 100 sites along 50 km of beach in eastern Australia. Sites occurred along a gradient of intensities of urban land conversion in the hind dunes. While the effects of urbanisation on the species sampled were pervasive across both ecosystems, the area of urbanised land mattered more for the coastal vertebrates observed, while proximity to urbanised land was more important for the surf zone fish observed. Here, fewer individuals and species of coastal vertebrates were found at sites with a greater extent of urbanised land within 5 km. Conversely, fish assemblages were more diverse in the surf zones abutting urban areas and more abundant at sites approximately 150 m from urbanised land. The spatial properties of these landscapes, including proximity to headlands for coastal vertebrates and reefs for fish, modified the effects of urbanisation. Our findings suggest that urbanisation can have ecologically nuanced effects that are detectable across the land-sea boundary, and stress the importance of landscape context when assessing and conserving animal assemblages in and around coastal cities.
Details
- Title
- Cross-boundary effects of human impacts on animal assemblages in the coastal zone
- Authors
- Jasmine A. Ballantyne - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringChristopher J. Henderson - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringAndrew D. Olds - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringThomas A. Schlacher - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringBrittany B. Elliott - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringBen L. Gilby (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Publication details
- Biodiversity and Conservation, Vol.33, pp.3039-3055
- Publisher
- Springer Dordrecht
- Date published
- 2024
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10531-024-02901-1
- ISSN
- 1572-9710; 0960-3115
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
- Grant note
- This work was supported by Sunshine Coast Council.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991048994802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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