RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Molluscs community associated with the brown algae of the genus Cystoseira in the Gulf of Naples (South Tyrrhenian Sea) JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 160200 DO 10.1101/160200 A1 Antonia Chiarore A1 Sara Fioretti A1 Angela Meccariello A1 Giuseppe Saccone A1 Francesco Paolo Patti YR 2017 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/10/160200.abstract AB The brown macroalgae of the genus Cystoseira are important habitat forming species along the rocky coasts all over the Mediterranean Sea. However, their decline at basin and local scale has been documented in many studies. We have characterized malacofauna associated with Cystoseira amentacea, C. compressa and C. crinita along the coasts of Ischia Island (Gulf of Naples). Samples were collected by snorkeling in the infralittoral belt. The surface within 20 x 20 cm frames was scraped off and collected in three replicates each sites. The diversity and structure of community were described by number of species, the exponential Shannon and the reciprocal Simpson’s indexes of diversity. The patterns of diversity at spatial scale were assessed by alpha, beta and gamma diversity. A total of 53 species of molluscs were identified in those associations. Gastropoda were the most species-rich class followed by Bivalvia and Polyplacophora. Bivalves were dominant in terms of number of individuals because of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. The species M. galloprovincialis was the most frequent and top dominant one inhabiting Cystoseira associations along the coasts of Ischia Island (96.6 % of the total abundance). Most of the identified molluscs species belonged to two feeding guilds: micrograzers and filter feeders (29 and 13 species respectively). Only juveniles were found providing the importance of Cystoseira associations as nursery for molluscs recruitment. Differences in composition and structure of molluscs assemblages were found within the three algal associations and seem to correspond both to different morphology and habitat in which these algal species live.