TITLE:
The Bivalve Mollusc Abra ovata: Role in Succession of Soft Bottom Communities on Newly Flooded Area of the Caspian Sea
AUTHORS:
Yuri Ya. Latypov
KEYWORDS:
Caspian Sea, Flooded Area, Succession, Bottom Community, Bivalve Mollusc, Abra ovata
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Climate Change,
Vol.4 No.3,
June
2,
2015
ABSTRACT: The
succession of an Abra ovata community
that had formed at the flooded area in Sulaksky Bay (the Caspian Sea) since the
mid-1980s was investigated. The resident species Abra ovata and Cerastoderma glaucum, the pioneer settlers, were found remaining dominant in the community structure
and driving the course of its succession, despite some decrease in settlement
density and in the rate of occurrence. It was the tolerance of the Sulaksky
pioneer settlers for later colonists (macrophytes, mytilids, crustaceans and
other organisms) that determined the development of the first succession stage.
The next succession stage in Abra ovata communities of Sulaksky Bay does not quite agree with the pattern
typical of solid substrates. On the one hand, the community development
supports the tolerance model: the pioneer Abra,
in spite of being dominant through all the succession stages, does not oppose
the settling of other multiple colonists; on the other hand, it agrees with a
facilitation model where the abundance of the original settlers, the grazing
species, provokes appearance of sturgeon.