Hypoxia in macrophytodetritus accumulation: Species specific harpacticoid copepod adaptation?

Mediterranean Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows generate high primary production and support large biodiversity of associated fauna and flora. The majority of the foliar material falls on the unvegetated sea floor during the autumnal leaf senescence, fuelling the detrital food web. Whilst laying on the sea floor the freshly formed macrophytodetritus pile up into accumulations according to the local hydrodynamics and seafloor geomorphology.
In these litter accumulations, harpacticoid copepods (Crustacea, Copepoda) are the main meiofaunal players (metazoans in the size range of 38µm – 1mm) and show a high specific diversity. They are primarily grazers, but their high specific diversity suggests that they occupy also a large variety of trophic niches. This large morphological and trophic diversity can partly be promoted by the complexity of the phytodetritus in seagrass accumulations.
On the other hand, macrophytodetritus degradation and flux of reduced compounds from the sediments is responsible for oxygen consumption inside the accumulation of seagrass litter. Therefore, concentration of oxygen inside the accumulation is very variable and often under the concentration observed in the water column just above the litter. Frequently, oxygen levels reach very low values. The present study aims to link the oxygen variability inside the accumulation to the densities of the five most dominant harpacticoid copepods found living in the P. oceanica litter. Standardized samples were collected seasonally in two contrasting sites of the Calvi Bay (Corsica) during one year.
Our results showed no correlation between the oxygen concentrations and harpacticoid community diversity or their total abundances. The five most dominant species showed divergent results, but none had a clear correlation with the oxygen concentration. This contrasts with observation done for sediment meiofaunal community where most harpacticoid copepods are sensitive to oxygen level and where nematodes often dominate the community. This could be explained by their high mobility and the patchiness and variability of the oxygen concentrations present in the accumulations. Harpacticoid copepods, whilst being sensitive to hypoxia and anoxia developed a strategy to live in this fast oxygen changing environment.
To conclude, our results underline the importance of species-specific analysis of correlation data. Especially in complex and dynamic environments where a variety of potential trophic niches are present and species competition is very likely to occur. The overall abundance pattern and diversity of the copepod community showed no relation to the oxygen concentration while the most abundant copepod species did not responded to fluctuating oxygen concentrations.