Abstract
We assessed the course and status of the recovery of rocky intertidal zonation after the Great East Japan Earthquake by conducting a census of the vertical distribution of 11 dominant macrobenthos (7 sessile and 4 mobile species) around the mid-tidal elevation at 23 sites along the Sanriku Coast, 150–160 km north-northwest of the epicenter of the earthquake. Sites were observed from 2011 to 2013, and the vertical distributions of each species were compared with those from the pre-earthquake period. Our results show that the earthquake considerably altered rocky intertidal zonation, mainly through coseismic subsidence rather than by the subsequent tsunami. By 28 months after the earthquake, the zonation of late-successional sessile taxa had not recovered, suggesting that the rocky intertidal community will experience a long delay before recovering from the influence of the earthquake. The dynamics of rocky intertidal zonation after the earthquake and accompanying subsidence includes two unique features: a delayed negative impact and an occasional increase in population sizes of several taxa. Neither of which has been reported following earthquakes of similar magnitude with accompanying uplift, in which there were mass mortalities of zone-forming species within 1 year after the event, preceding downward shifts in their zonations.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. T. Okuda, Dr. M. Tsujino, T. Hagino, M. Iida, R. Sahara, M. Ohira, and Y. Kanamori for field assistance. For field and laboratory facilities, we are grateful to the staff and students of the International Coastal Research Center of the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo. This study was made possible by the generous support and encouragement of local fisherman and the fishery office of the Fisherman’s Cooperative Associations in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. This research was supported by the Cooperative Program of the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo (Nos. 108 [2006], 104 [2007], 107 [2008], 101 [2009], and 103 [2010] to T.N.), and was partly supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grants (Nos. 20570012, 24570012, and 15K07208 to T.N.) and the Tohoku Ecosystem-Associated Marine Sciences (TEAMS) project. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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Noda, T., Iwasaki, A., Fukaya, K. (2016). Rocky Intertidal Zonation: Impacts and Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake. In: Urabe, J., Nakashizuka, T. (eds) Ecological Impacts of Tsunamis on Coastal Ecosystems. Ecological Research Monographs. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56448-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56448-5_3
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