Resumen de Temporal evolution of polychaete assemblages on intertidal hard substrata at two localities of the Galician coast after the ‘prestige’ oil spill
Xandro García Regueira, Ramiro Tato, Juan Moreira, Victoriano Urgorri
The Prestige oil spill on November 2002 affected many coastal areas of the NW Iberian Peninsula.
At the Galician coast, many rocky intertidal areas were strongly impacted and large amounts of fuel reached there. The temporal evolution of intertidal polychaete assemblages inhabiting mussel and algal beds at natural intertidal rocky shores were studied in one affected location of the western Galician coast (Caldebarcos) and compared to the temporal trends at one control location (O Segaño, Ría de Ferrol), from winter 2004 to summer 2005. Values of univariate parameters (number of species, abundance, ShannonWiener’s diversity) and multivariate analyses did not suggest a strong effect on the temporal variability in the composition of assemblages or abundance of taxa. Nevertheless, the lack of baseline data prevents from a full assessment of the impact and the eventual recovery of the polychaete assemblages. In addition, effects of chronic anthropogenic disturbances occurring along the Galician coast and rias might overlap with those of the Prestige oil spill according to the trends in temporal evolution observed at the control location.
