Sandy beaches:

The hyperbenthos of the surf zone

By:
Veronica Ruiz X.

Coastal systems - MareLac

2002-2003
 Introduction
Stating the Situation:
• Surf zones: rich in density and diversity.
– Nurseries
– Food webs
• High pressure (use): Human activities
– Tourism, fisheries, discharges.
• Tools for management and control.
• Knowledge of the system: necessary but scare
 Benthos:
• Organisms with close relationship with the
bottom: live in it or depend on it for
feeding.

Hyperbenthos:
• Association of small animals living in the
water layer close to the sea bed. (Mees y
Jones, 1995).
 Clasification
• Holohyperbenthos: spend variable periods of their
adult life in the hyperbenthos
• Merohyperbenthos: spend only part of their early
life history in the hyperbenthos and recruit to
nekton, epibenthos or endobenthos

The hyperbenthos comprises a broad assembmage of

divers forms related only by their distibution in
space and not by phylogeny or exclusively functinal
attributes. (Day et al. 1989).
 Surf zone
The moving water envelope form the water up-rush on the
shore to the most seaward breaker
 Ecological Importance:

• Primary production regulation

• Nutrient regeneration
• Flux of organic carbon to higher tropic level > link
between benthic and pelagic system
• Detritus recycling
• Biological control
 In the surf zone

• Local endobenthic species: actively perform

nocturnal vertical migrations
• Tidal migrants carried in from sublittoral
habitats by the tide
 What?
Knowledge Biodiversity in sandy beaches
Sustainable management
 How? (specifically):
• Identification of organisms till the finest posibel
taxonomic level: (tropics)
• Describe general patterns: temporal (circadian, tidal,
lunar, seasonal, interannual variation), spatial
(structure of the system).
• Influence of abiotic variables: oceanographic,
meteorological, local. > Responses.
• Bioindicators > environmental changes: climatic,
anthropogenic.
Sampling
• Hyperbenthic sledge
• Mesh size: 1 mm

• Tows parallel to the

coast
• 1 m depth
 Strategy:

• Period: spring tide.

• High or low tide
• Day or night.
 Environmental variables
• Temperature • Waves: height and
• Salinity period.
• Oxygen (?) • Littoral currents
• Nutrients • Sediment
• (granulometry)
POM and SPM
• • Intertidal slope
Pigments: Chlorophyll
• Beach classification
– The processes and morphology of natural exposed
beaches are driven principally by he regime of tides and
waves (Wright et al., 1984)
• Tide (Semidiurnal)
– Amplitude and intertidal slope define the wide of
intertidal zone, and the time of exposure
– Zonation
• Waves:
– Principal factor in beach dynamics.
– Predominant direction defines littoral current direction
• Littoral currents:
– Structuring beach: zones of erosion or accretion
– Transport
 Lab work:

• Dye
• Sorting • Morphospecies
• Identification
• Counting • Functional species
 Factors controlling community
structure
• Diversity and density
• Fluctuations in abiotic and biotic
parameters
– Variation: seasonal, tidal, dial, etc..
– Predation: natural control system
– Human activity
 Statistical analysis
• Total and “group” densities: looking for patterns
• Relative densities: dominance
• Important species approach
• Multivariate techniques
• Environmental variables
• Univariate analysis
 Biodiversity
Hill numbers (1973)
Strongly influenced by
No = n
N = number of species rare species

Shannon – Wiener Index  

N1= exp(H)
n
H   pi  ln( pi )
i 1

n
Sensitive to abundance of
H   pi  ln( pi ) the dominant species in
i 1
N2= 1/SI Simpson dominance index the sample: dominant
concentration measure
n
SI   pi2
i 1

N∞=  
1/max(pi) pi = relative abundance of each specie
n
SI   pi
2

i 1
 Raw Conclusions
• Dominance of Mysidacea
• Higher diversity in warm season: larger
dominance of merohyperbenthos
• Higher diversity in nocturnal samples
• Spatial differentiation
• “Other” factors: red tide
 Bioindicator?

•Hyperbenthonic organisms are specially sensible to

environmental changes:
– short life cycle > fast response
– larval stages > delicates
•Motile, and swim actively
– escape unfavorable physico-chemical conditions
– food