A meta-analysis reveals global patterns of sediment effects on marine biodiversity

Sediment disturbances are important threats affecting marine biodiversity, but the variety of biological responses have not yet been synthesized. Here, we collate all available information to compare the extent of impacts across different taxonomic groups, habitat types, and pathways of impact (light attenuation, suspended sediment and sedimentation). Global 1979-2017 Coral, fish, seagrass, sponge, macroalgae, ascidian, bryozoan, crustacean, echinoderm, mollusc, polychaeta We used meta-analyses to evaluate the effects of sediments across 842 observations found in 110 publications. We also evaluated some of the biological and methodological factors that could explain the variable effects observed in different studies. We found a significant negative effect of sediments on behavioural responses, reproduction and recruitment, organism’s morphology, physiology, community abundance and diversity, and species interactions. In contrast, the overall effect on abundance of individual species was...