Physically disturbed deep-sea macrofauna in the Peru Basin, southeast Pacific, revisited 7 years after the experimental impact

Long-term disturbance effects of a physical disturbance experiment on the benthic macrofauna (> 500 mum), with particular emphasis on the dominant Polychaeta, were investigated in connection with the German ATESEPP joint programme in 4150 m depth in the Peru Basin of the tropical southeast (SE) Pacific. The study site was the 10.8 km(2) experimental field of the disturbance and recolonization experiment (DISCOL) conducted in early 1989. This programme had the objective to simulate some of the potential disturbance effects of manganese nodule mining on the bottom-dwelling biota with a towed plough-harrow disturber, and subsequently to investigate the resultant community responses with three postimpact samplings during a period of 3 years. Seven years after disturbance, in early 1996, the DISCOL site was revisited, and this study focuses on temporal development of the macrofauna over that extended period. Box core samples obtained during all post-impact expeditions from the disturber tracks (disturbed treatment) were compared with unploughed sediments from the experimental field (undisturbed treatment) and with samples from unimpacted sites of the surrounding (reference treatment). The experiment did not cause the disastrous long-term community changes in the sediment dwelling macrofauna that previously were predicted to follow large-scale disturbances. Abundance recoveries of the macrofaunal taxa were largely terminated after 7 years. Major differences in the faunal compositions at the selected taxonomic levels of higher macrofauna taxa, polychaete families and polychaete species between disturbed and control sites were not observed, but certain disturbance effects remained present over the entire 7-year period: Within-treatment data heterogeneity for the higher macrofauna taxa and the polychaete families was greater in the disturber track samples than in undisturbed and reference treatments. Enhanced heterogeneity was expressed by significantly steeper regression slopes of variance-to-mean ratios of faunal abundances (p < 0.05) and enhanced spatial aggregation at the levels of higher macrofauna taxa and polychaete families. Hurlbert rarefaction E(S-n) and Shannon's diversity index H ' calculated in non-standard ways for polychaete species revealed that patterns of diminished diversity in the disturbed treatments, which were observed during the later DISCOL period, were still present after 7 years, although the intensity of this signal became weaker. Recent abundance differences between treatments for the Bivalvia, Cumacea and the sigalionid polychaete species Leanira sp. A suggested that unploughed areas from the experimental field possibly were also affected by subtle long-term influences of particle plume settlement caused by the disturber action. A brief comparison with macrofauna abundance data from other ATESEPP sample locations in the Peru Basin revealed highest similarity between the sites located in the manganese nodule province, suggesting that similar disturbance effects can be expected for these areas. Nevertheless, the experimental impact by far did not reach industrial mining impact dimensions and interpretation of the results with regard to commercial mining requires caution. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.