Trait-based approaches to address animal-soft sediment relationships in marine ecosystem: a mini review

Trait-based approaches have gained prominence in assessing the relationships between benthic diversity, habitat structure, and functioning in marine ecosystems. We reviewed the popular trait-based approaches currently used to evaluate the connections between macrobenthic communities and marine soft sediments. We examined techniques mainly based on response traits (i.e., that reflect animal responses to the environment), including benthic quality indices, metrics of community functional diversity, and biological trait analysis (BTA). We also discussed approaches focused on effect traits (i.e., reflecting the impact of animals on the environment). These approaches also use functional diversity indices and BTA, but specific indices such as community bioturbation potential (BPc) and community bioirrigation potential (BIPc) enable a more direct assessment of the impacts of macrobenthic communities on soft sediment habitats. We highlight the advantages and limitations of these techniques and discuss the need for standardized protocols and improved data collection methods. Despite their limitations, trait-based techniques are valuable tools for marine ecologists because they are closely related to ecosystem functioning and can be used for investigating many hypotheses of animal-sediment relationships in marine ecosystems.