The plot in a plot

By | 13 February, 2020

In the PERCEBES Human Exclusion Experiments we have followed some plots for up to 2 years (and we keep following some of them). Each series of pictures from a plot tells many different stories happening in a landscape of a few square decimeters. This plot is located in Las Llanas, Asturias, N Spain. The plot has been covered by a cage during 2 years. This is its situation in December 2017.

 

That same month, we removed a patch of stalked barnacles from the stand, marked by a yellow rectangle.

 

One year later, the remaining patches of barnacles have grown laterally, but the empty space left after removal of the first patch remains there. It is now covered by a black stuff corresponding to the seaweed  Ralfsia verrucosa. Meanwhile mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) have displaced the corallinaceous, red algae in the lower right part of the plot, and are now sharing the space with the barnacles. 

That same winter, a further patch of barnacles is removed (yellow square)

 

In July 2019, one and a half years after the first patch was removed, the patch is starting to show some symptoms of recovery. Some little barnacles can be seen inside the crack, although those animals will require at least another year to grow to commercial size. The process of recolonization of a harvested patch is slow. However, the patches that remained in the plot have grown laterally very repidly, and now cover a significant portion of the plot.

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