Characterization and evaluation of structuring patterns of benthic molluscs and echinoderms community in rocky intertidal areas in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
sandstone reefs, intertidal, benthos, survey methods, scientometrics
Rocky intertidal ecosystems house a great diversity of species, and it serves, for instance, as feeding, growing and reproduction areas. Among the organisms that inhabit these areas, the benthic community has abundant and ecological important representatives, such as mollusks and echinoderms. That ecosystems are worldwide distributed and can be found from tropical to polar zones. Physic and environmental features influence the composition and temporal and spatial patterns of benthic distribution. Despite this, the majority of studies on rocky intertidal benthic organisms have focused in true rocky shores at temperate and subtropical areas, and there is a lack of studies in other rocky types from tropical areas. Thus, the present study had four main goals: 1) through a scientometric analyze, to identify the main types of methods which have been applied to survey mobile and sessile benthic organisms, as well as to identify patterns in publications regarding the developed studies; and, in tropical sandstone reefs: 2) to test methods for accessing benthic organisms that better represent the diversity of species; 3) to test what are the environmental factors that influence the most the benthic composition and distribution; and 4) to test in which spatial scale (small, mean and big ones) there are greater variation of richness, diversity and abundance of the organisms. From this, we intend to fill in gaps in this research area and to provide ecological data that could be comparable with other ecosystems with similar physic and biological features.