Open Journal of Marine Science, 2013, 3, 161-166 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojms.2013.34018 Published Online October 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojms) Recovery Process on Soft-Bottom Macrobenthic Communities after Artificial Disturbance in Tropical Polluted Estuary (Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Cecília do Valle Pinto Pereira 1,2 , Leandro Amaro Pessoa 1,3,4* , Marcos Aurélio Vasconcelos de Freitas 4 , Carlos Alejandro Echeverría 1,4 1 Laboratório de Pesquisas Costeiras e Estuarinas—LABCOEST/UFRJmar (Coastal and Estuarine Research Laboratory) Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ Old Hidroplanes Hangar, Fundão, Brazil 2 Programa de Pós Graduação em Biodiversidade e Biologia Evolutiva—PPGBBE/UFRJ, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 3 Programa de Pós Graduação em Biologia Marinha—PPGBM/UFF, Fluminense Federal University, Niterói, Brazil 4 Instituto Virtual Internacional de Mudanças Globais (International Virtual Institute of the Global Change—IVIG/COPPE-UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Email: * pessoa_ufrj@yahoo.com.br Received April 15, 2013; revised June 20, 2013; accepted July 13, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Cecília do Valle Pinto Pereira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attri- bution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT The regime of disturbance with natural or anthropogenic origin can lead to the destabilization or even to a mass mortal- ity of benthic communities. Due to the heterogeneity of the disturbance there is a formation of patches in different stages of ecological succession. The aim of this study is to follow and describe the resilience in artificial disturbed sediment in a polluted bay in Rio de Janeiro. The sediment was collected, sterilized and placed inside corers (10 cm diameter × 15 cm height) in the same place where it was collected. We allocated the samples in two structures, the dif- ference between them was that one was placed closed to the bottom and the other was placed 50 cm height. We found 2352 organisms distributed in 14 taxons. The class Polychaeta and the order Amphipoda showed the highest density in all the survey and treatments. We identified the factors influencing the scenarium: different mechanisms of dispersal, the posi- tion of the structures and life history of each group. Disturbance can be the main cause of the patch’s diversity found in estuaries and coastal areas. Because of this, monitoring of selected areas becomes an important tool to under- stand the regime of disturbance as a key factor structuring benthic communities in soft sediment, also suggesting a metapopula- tion dynamics. Keywords: Sucession; Recolonization; Defaunation; Metapopulation Dynamics; Dispersion Processes 1. Introduction The soft bottom benthic communities are considered good indicators of the ecological status of marine ecosystems and its structure can be considered a powerful tool for monitoring changes in the environment over time [1]. Benthic communities are often subjected to natural and artificial perturbations, which depending on the intensity can lead to the total or partial defaunation. These distur- bances are uncommon and irregular events that cause abrupt change in the community structure and they move them from the near equilibrium stage to and put it in an early succession stage [2]. The origin of disturbance can be either natural such as storms and currents or anthropic interference such as dragging, pollution and bottom trawl- ing [3,4]. Also, it can be the result of a biological interac- tion as, for example: predation, recruitment, food avail- ability [5] and bioturbation [6]. The spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the distur- bance regime can lead to a mosaic of patches. Thus we can observe a habitat with parts of the community at dif- ferent stages of succession [7]. These patches are coupled by migration. In this system local extinctions are bal- anced by the migration of organisms from other patches [8]. The new patches are seen as new possibilities to the settlement of organisms in different stages of life [7]. The time to recovery and the composition of the new * Corresponding author. Copyright © 2013 SciRes. OJMS