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International Journal of Marine Science 2014, Vol.4, No.14: 134-142
http://ijms.sophiapublisher.com
137
Table 2 Total biomass (g) per sites and months of the biological
community associated to the Asian green mussel
P. viridis
in
Cienfuegos Bay. At BH (Sunk Boat) only vegetal elements were
registered.
Sites
February May
November Mean
PG
660.8
334.1
560.5
518.5
M7
747.0
398.3
625.5
590.3
PC
506.1
245.8
403.7
385.2
BH
150.9
2.3
61.7
71.6
Mean
516.2
245.1
412.9
391.4
Figure 2 Biomass per months of epifauna associated to the Asian
green mussel
P. viridis
in Cienfuegos Bay. SD: standard
deviation.
1.3 Spatial variations of the biomass of epifauna
associated to
P. viridis
In spatial scale, the applied ANOVA detected
differences (p<0.05) being BH the site where the total
biomass value was significantly less (Figure 3). At that
site the associated biomass was constituted by vegetal
elements only. Biomass of epifauna associated to each
mussel at the other sites had the following mean value:
2.74 g/m at PG, 4.31 g/m at M7 and 1.77 g/m at PC.
At PC wharf, the species richness was the least (S=17).
However, at the sampled piles there were several
species characteristic of relative clean waters, which
were not registered in the rest of the sites. These species
were found cohabiting with
P. viridis
, but not as
epibiontes. This is the case of several individuals of
lion fish,
Pterois volitans
(Linnaeus, 1758), spiny
lobster juveniles,
Panulirus argus
(Latreille, 1804),
crab
Menippe mercenaria
(Say, 1818), and some
gastropods such as
Melongena melongena
and
Cerithium
atratum
. The species richness of the associated epi-
Figure 3 Biomass per sites of the epifauna associated to the
Asian green mussel
P. viridis
in Cienfuegos Bay. SD: standard
deviation.
fauna for PG and M7 warves, presented values of S=28
and S=33 respectively. Species richness for total area
sampled in the bay it was S=39.
2 Discussion
The epifauna associated to
P. viridis
is not too much
diverse (almost 40 species only) but dominated by few
groups such as barnacles, bryozoans and ascidians. In a
study regarding only the malacological fauna
associated with Asian green mussel in Araya Peninsula,
Venezuela, 50 species were reported (Villafranca and
Jiménez, 2004). Based on the occurrence frequency on
temporal scale, barnacles, as well as polychaetes and
braquiuran (of less biomass), appeared in the 100 % of
samplings. These groups could be classified as
constants. Although no significant differences were
found when comparing the total biomass values
between sampling months, the main groups showed
significant differences. In November, bryozoans and
ascidians were seen surrounding mussels but they were
not found on mussels shells (they did not contributed to
the biomass). This fact might be related to the salinity
decrease reported for that month (Garcés et al., 2012).
In the spatial scale, significant differences were found
on total biomass values because of mussels at BH, the
site far away of the Cienfuegos City (source of
contamination and eutrophization), were cleanest. It is
possible that variations in the abundance of all these
epifauna groups were influenced by nutrients
concentration or other characteristics of the circulating
waters such as dissolved oxygen, pollutant agents or
salinity variations. The North lobule of the Bay has