Impacts of Ocean Deoxygenation on Marine Benthos in the Gulf of Mexico

Ocean deoxygenation is a growing concern globally. Oxygen is less soluble in warm water, and warming temperatures also result in the slowdown of ocean circulation which limits oxygen delivery to deeper waters. Anthropogenic eutrophication has also contributed to the development of hypoxic conditions in many coastal areas. Here we investigate biodiversity structure along an environmental gradient in the Gulf of Mexico to see how patterns of spatiotemporal turnover can inform future biotic response of benthos to ocean deoxygenation. Live and dead assemblages of bivalve mollusks were collected at 15 stations offshore Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. Abundance and body size data were collected, and specimens were classified functionally using information about feeding, attachment, life position, and body size. Environmental conditions were characterized using multi-decadal mean sea surface temperature (SST), dissolved oxygen (DO), and net primary productivity (NPP), and grain size data from our field samples. Stations in the north-central Gulf affected by Mississippi River discharge are characterized by higher NPP, lower DO, and higher percentages of silt and clay than stations in the northeastern Gulf. Both taxonomic and functional diversity significantly covary with this environmental gradient, with the lowest diversities observed at stations in the core of Louisiana’s “dead zone.” Analyses of spatiotemporal turnover patterns reveal shifts in the dominant feeding mode, with hypoxic environments containing a greater abundance of deposit and mixed feeders, compared with more oxygenated environments that host an abundance of suspension feeders and are characterized by a greater variety of feeding ecologies. Live-dead analyses reveal a shift in taxonomic and functional diversity in coastal Louisiana, that appears to coincide with the onset of anthropogenic eutrophication in these coastal settings.