Deena Pillay

Human-mediated drivers of change — impacts on coastal ecosystems and marine biota of South Africa

Coastal ecosystems are highly vulnerable to human-mediated drivers of global change because they are located at the land–ocean interface and often host centres of urbanisation and development. The South African coastline comprises several distinct coastal ecoregions that support a wide range of coastal (inshore) ecosystems, including rocky, sandy and mixed shores, kelp beds, estuaries and seagrass communities. A growing body of evidence indicates that local air and sea temperatures, wind patterns, ocean current speed and upwelling regimes are all being affected by human-mediated climate change. In addition, anthropogenic activities, such as shipping (introducing coastal bioinvasives), exploitation of coastal marine resources, industry (releasing pollutants) and urban development, act synergistically with climate change to place pressure on coastal ecosystems and their biota. The aim of this review was primarily to synthesise and update research into causes of direct and indirect human-mediated global change and their effects on South African coastal systems. It incorporates both historic and the latest regional research on climate change and anthropogenic threats across the ecosystems listed above, much of which was supported by the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR), specifically the SEAChange programme in recent years. It is evident that all these ecosystems are vulnerable to all the drivers considered, albeit to differing degrees, depending on their location on the coast. Whereas some bioinvasives have had a dramatic impact on rocky shore systems on the West Coast, their impact has been moderate on the South Coast and minimal on the East Coast; exploitation shows the reverse pattern. Furthermore, the impacts of human-mediated drivers on coastal ecosystems are synergistic. Of major interest is the fact that the West Coast and parts of the South Coast are exhibiting cooling trends in offshore sea surface temperatures, rather than warming. Correspondingly, a geographical spread of organisms associated with West and South-West Coast rocky shores and kelp beds has tended to be eastwards around Cape Point, rather than northwards along the West Coast as would have been expected with warming sea temperatures. Overall, significant progress has been made toward a better understanding of the combined pressures on each ecosystem and knowledge gaps have been identified, thus helping to direct future research themes.

Declines in benthic macroinvertebrate community metrics and microphytobenthic biomass in an estuarine lake following enrichment by hippo dung

Hippos transfer massive quantities of trophic resources from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems through defecation. The ramifications of the latter for the functioning of benthic ecosystems are unknown, but are dependent ultimately on rates of utilisation relative to inputs. Low input and high utilisation can strengthen bottom-up pathways and enhance consumer biomass and abundance. However, if inputs exceed utilisation rates, dung can accumulate, leading to a decline in water quality, with important repercussions for resident assemblages. Here, we quantify the consequences of hippo dung inputs on benthic assemblages in an estuarine lake in South Africa. The system supports over a thousand hippos, and during recent drought periods (extending over a decade), hippo dung has been observed to form mats over benthic habitats. Enrichment of plots using exclusion/inclusion cages with dung at naturally occurring concentrations indicated a decline in benthic chl-a by roughly 50% and macrofaunal abundance, biomass and richness by up to 76, 56 and 27% respectively. Our findings suggest that persistent inputs of hippo dung can act as an important stressor of benthic systems, leading ultimately to a loss of productivity. Accumulation of hippo dung over benthic habitats is therefore an important mechanism by which hippos indirectly structure aquatic ecosystems.

Assessing the ecosystem effects of the abalone Haliotis midae from its diet and foraging behaviour

The South African abalone Haliotis midae is commercially exploited and seriously threatened by overfishing. This not only affects the species itself but potentially the functioning of the ecosystem because of associated changes in community structure. The nature of effects that can follow the loss or reduction of a species depends in part on its position in the foodweb and its feeding behaviour. To assess the ecosystem effects of the adults and subadults of this previously abundant herbivore on the south-west coast of South Africa, we studied their diet and mode of food procurement by (a) in-field observations of adult and subadult abalone, (b) analysis of the gut contents of adults, (c) comparison of diet with the availability of algae, and (d) a mesocosm experiment on subadult feeding behaviour. Both field and dietary studies showed that adults subsist mainly by trapping drift kelp, but also occasionally graze on attached algae such as Plocamium spp., and feed in a manner that is highly selective, with drift kelp constituting 95–98% of the diet, and several species of common algae being avoided. In the mesocosm experiment, subadults preferentially fed on drift kelp, but emerged at night to a greater extent to graze on microflora if no drift material was available. Their propensity to emerge was, however, reduced if the rock lobster Jasus lalandii was present. Collectively, this evidence indicates that any ecosystem effects that subadults and adults of H. midae have as grazers will be weak because they feed mainly by trapping drift material, and the frequency of grazing and the incidence of consumption of attached algae are low.