Compounded perturbations in coastal areas: contrasting responses to nutrient enrichment and the regime of storm-related disturbance depend on life-history traits

1.Natural systems are exposed to compounded perturbations, whose changes in temporal variance can be as important as those in mean intensity for shaping the structure of assemblages. Specifically, climate-related physical disturbances and nutrient inputs due to natural and/or anthropogenic activities occur concomitantly, but experimental tests of the simultaneous effects of changes in the regime of more than one perturbation are generally lacking. Filling this gap is key to understand ecological responses of natural assemblages to climate-related change in the intensity and temporal patterning of physical disturbance combined with other global stressors.

2.Responses to factorial manipulations of nutrient enrichment, mean intensity and temporal variability of storm-like mechanical disturbance were examined, using benthic assemblages of tide-pools as model system.

3.Response variables were mean abundance values and temporal variances of taxa with different life-traits. Consistent ne...