Comparing the Impacts of Human Disturbance and Marine Preserve Status in the Intertidal Community

Abstract

Exploring the impacts of human disturbance on the rocky intertidal community has implications for how human interaction can affect community composition, organism abundance, diversity, and species richness. The efficacy of marine protected areas' role in preserving biodiversity has been widely debated. We found that areas of increased human disturbance lacking protective status appear to be less biodiverse. This finding provides context for implementing future marine preserves. We performed quadrat and abundance surveys on Yellow Island, a marine preserve in the Salish Sea to characterize the biodiversity of the intertidal. Utilizing community science data that used equivalent survey methods to ours from the Multi-agency Rocky Intertidal Network (MARINe) for two urban intertidal sites in the Salish Sea with intermediate and higher disturbance, we aim to answer the question of how protected status and human disturbance level impact community composition. Statistical analysis of meiofauna percent-cover and phyla counts reveals that the intermediate and higher disturbance areas have lower total phyla presence compared to the marine preserve low disturbance site. Increased disturbance sites are dominated by algal cover while the marine preserve site has increased non-algal phyla and algal phyla. With further research in eDNA and other biological traits, we can get a fuller picture of how disturbance and protection status impact the intertidal community. This work highlights the importance of long-term monitoring projects in the marine environment. Evans