Thanks to previous work conducted by Staff et al. (1986), Copano Bay on the
Texas coast presents an exceptional research area for studying 1) the effect of living
volatility on death assemblage diversity and composition and 2) the stability of death
assemblage diversity. Staff et al. (1986) revisited one site in Copano Bay every six
weeks for 18 months in 1981-1982. In order to test the variability of both the live and
dead assemblages of Copano Bay, Texas, the transect originally established by Staff et
al. (1981) in 1981-1983, was reestablished in 2004 and sampled every six weeks for a
duration of one year. Taxonomic abundance, diversity, and composition of these
assemblages were compared to each other and those of Staff et al. (1981) in order to
understand how both the living and dead assemblages have changed in the intervening
22 years.
Important findings include: 1. Death assemblage composition in Copano Bay
changed over 22 years more than expected based on short-term variation; 2. The death
assemblages in Copano Bay reflected changes in taxonomic composition of the
corresponding living community; 3. The death assemblages of Copano Bay were found
to predominantly reflect the local, rather than the entire regional, species pool; and 4. Variation in diversity occurred at both six-week and 22-year time scales, indicating
that the death assemblages at the study site are variable.
Understanding time averaging and its effects on death assemblages will not only
aid in paleocommunity reconstruction, but also aid in the construction of modern
ecologic baselines.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4181 |
| Date | 30 October 2006 |
| Creators | Ebnother, Danielle Dawn |
| Contributors | Olszewski, Thomas D. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 1272800 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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