How Edge Effects in Eelgrass Habitats Impact Organism Abundance and Diversity in the Puget Sound

Abstract

Habitat transitions occur all over the globe. They can be seen in both terrestrial and marine environments and produce influential edge effects. In the Puget Sound, eelgrass habitats are commonly seen with abrupt habitat changes at the edge of the eelgrass bed. These habitat changes in eelgrass beds provides opportunities for changes in the community of organisms that reside there. The purpose of this study was to determine how an edge of a bed differs from the interior of the bed in terms of total organisms counted and different species observed. It was observed that the edge communities of eelgrass beds contained more species and an increased amount of organisms when compared to the interior. There was a total of 25 species observed along the edge of the eelgrass bed across all sites and only 19 in the interior. This indicates that these habitat edge effects have a very significant impact on the community composition that, in turn, greatly affect the local ecosystem.