Habitats defined by various biological and environmental variables are
increasingly assumed to be surrogates for biodiversity. This study tested this
assumption for temperate subtidal rocky reefs off south-eastern Australia by
investigating the consistency of floral and faunal macrobenthic assemblages
within habitats defined by dominant vegetation, substratum lithology, depth,
wave exposure and region. Taxonomic groups included seagrasses, rhodophytes,
chlorophytes, phaeophytes, hydroids, bryozoans, molluscs, polychaetes,
pycnogonids and echinoderms. The results from multivariate statistical
analyses indicated that, although variation between replicate samples is high,
habitats as defined by dominant vegetation and, to a lesser extent, region
supported consistent floral and faunal assemblages. The patterns did not
emphasize a broad-scale biogeographic gradient, but rather the environmental
heterogeneity of the coastline at scales of 10–100 km.
Development of a biological condition assessment index for shallow, subtidal rocky reefs in Southern California, USA
