Maintenance of species dominance through pulse disturbances to a sessile marine invertebrate assemblage in Port Shelter, Hong Kong

Abstract

Pollution events can be considered as disturbances to an ecosystem and have the potential to be an important structuring force within assemblages of plants and animals. Our understanding of pollution impacts will benefit from the investigation of important aspects of these disturbances such as their timing and frequency. We investigated the effect of pulse copper pollution events on the development of hard-substrate invertebrate assemblages in Port Shelter, Hong Kong. Using a field dosing technique, we created single or repeated copper pollution events of less than 100 μg l-1 close to settlement plates. In short-term experiments, pulses were delivered in either the first or the second week o..