LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Environmental quality assessment of the fish farms’ impact in the Monastir Bay (eastern of Tunisia, Central Mediterranean): a benthic foraminiferal perspective

Photo from archive.org

Offshore fish farms have been active inside the Monastir Bay, Hammemet Gulf for over 10 years, but their environmental impact is still unknown. This study focuses on the evaluation of the… Click to show full abstract

Offshore fish farms have been active inside the Monastir Bay, Hammemet Gulf for over 10 years, but their environmental impact is still unknown. This study focuses on the evaluation of the fish farming activity impact in the Monastir Bay as revealed by geochemical and benthic foraminiferal data. Samples were collected around three fish cages at different water depths. Total organic carbon (TOC) and total phosphate (TP) in the sediment show higher values beneath the fish cages and decrease proportionally with distance from the cages. Living foraminiferal assemblages around fish farms are dominated by stress-tolerant species with higher abundances of Ammonia tepida , Rosalina bradyi , Elphidium crispum , and Peneroplis planatus . On the basis of our results, A. tepida and Quinqueloculina seminula are confirmed to be tolerant to elevated nutriment content, while Ammonia parkinsoniana seems to be more sensitive to organic enrichment. We also test the Foram-AMBI that is revealed to be a very promising tool by which evaluating the ecological quality status of marine sediment. The results of the present study confirm the suitability of living benthic foraminifera as bioindicators of organic enrichment induced by aquaculture activities.

Keywords: benthic foraminiferal; quality; monastir bay; fish farms; impact monastir

Journal Title: Environmental Science and Pollution Research
Year Published: 2020

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.