Exploring the potential effects of IMTA on water column seston through intensive short-time cycles approach

Abstract

Short-time cycles of the water column can reflect undetectable changes in seasonal cycles, providing a high temporal resolution for quantifying seston availability. Here, trends in seston quantity and quality were investigated through intensive temporal cycle assessments at an IMTA site and a nearby fish farm facility (control site) during two different periods of the year (July 2021 and March 2022).Chlorophyll-a values (max 10.28 μg L−1) showed no significant differences between sites, while lipid values (max 394.87 μg L−1) were significantly lower at the IMTA site than at the control site during most sampling times, suggesting that the bioremediating organisms at the IMTA site may help mitigate the impact of fish farming. The IMTA site structured a marine animal forest capable of increasing the abundance of zooplankton, reaching 109,021 ind m−3. The short-time cycle appeared useful for detecting changes that occur at high temporal resolution, underlying the effects of mitigation measures behind the high variability of marine coastal systems.