Large-scale changes in macrobenthic biodiversity driven by mangrove afforestation

Large-scale anthropogenic mangroves have been constructed in coastal regions worldwide, but our understanding of their ecological effects is limited. In particular, the question of whether and how anthropogenic mangroves influence biodiversity patterns remains elusive.
Here, we investigated the influence of large-scale anthropogenic mangroves on biodiversity patterns of mangrove macrobenthos. Specifically, we measure and seek to explain differences in species richness, abundance, assemblage composition, and distance-decay effect before and after the construction of anthropogenic mangroves.
We surveyed assemblages of gastropod, bivalve and crab species over a wide latitudinal extent (24–28°N) in subtropical China. For each, we calculated species richness, abundance, assemblage composition, and distance-decay relationship before and after the construction of anthropogenic mangroves.

After the large-scale anthropogenic mangroves, we found species richness of gastropods, bivalves and crab..., ,