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146743

Effect of habitat fragmentation on abundance and diversity of seagrass-associated crustacean assemblage at Hurghada, Red Sea

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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Tags

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Abstract

Seagrass beds in Red Sea are increasingly subject to both natural and anthropogenic disturbance and fragmentation, resulting in an increase in the edge habitats. Consequently, the present study was designed to study the effect of habitat fragmentation of seagrass on the diversity and abundance of epiphytic crustaceans inhabiting seagrass canopies. For this purpose, two sites, containing different seagrass patch sizes, were selected for seasonal sampling during the period from mid-April 2015 to mid-January 2016 around Hurghada, Red Sea. Evaluations of the differences in crustacean assemblage structure, abundance and diversity between fragmented and continuous seagrass beds as well as the edge and center of the same seagrass patches were figured out. Overall, 33 crustacean species belong to 30 genera, 25 families, and 7 orders were recorded, from all different seagrass patches with a comparable temporal and spatial distribution; whereas all recorded crustacean species belong to class Malacostraca. Results indicated that large seagrass patches harbor higher crustacean's densities than medium and small seagrass patches, which promote the assumption of the negative effect of seagrass fragmentation. The abundance of crustacean groups are also markedly increase in the large patches except decapods in one site. Reduction of habitat size led to reducing the number of crustacean species in both sites. However, Evenness values (J') showed that habitat fragmentation had no effect on diversity. THE Total crustaceans abundance is relatively increase toward the patch edge with a percentage of increase up to 18 %. However, crustacean species richness was insensitive to differences in patch edge-center microhabitat. Relation between seagrass shoot density/biomass and the total crustacean abundance also figured out in this study.

DOI

10.21608/idj.2016.146743

Keywords

Crustacea, Habitat fragmentation, Ecological edge, Abundance, diversity, Seagrass, Red Sea

Authors

First Name

Walaa

Last Name

Shaban

MiddleName

M.

Affiliation

Zoology Department, Marine Biology and Fish Sciences section, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

wshaban1@yahoo.com

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

First Name

Salah

Last Name

Abdel-Gaid

MiddleName

E.

Affiliation

Zoology Department, Marine Biology and Fish Sciences section, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

-

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

First Name

Ahmed

Last Name

. Hellal

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Zoology Department, Marine Biology and Fish Sciences section, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

-

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

Volume

5

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

21646

Issue Date

2016-12-01

Receive Date

2016-06-06

Publish Date

2016-12-25

Page Start

71

Page End

89

Print ISSN

2314-5536

Online ISSN

2314-5544

Link

https://ijd.journals.ekb.eg/article_146743.html

Detail API

https://ijd.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=146743

Order

6

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,105

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

International Journal of Development

Publication Link

https://ijd.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Effect of habitat fragmentation on abundance and diversity of seagrass-associated crustacean assemblage at Hurghada, Red Sea

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023