C. Kraussi In The Langebaan Lagoon Area?

Coastal environments especially benthic ecosystems are exposed to several anthropogenic and physical disturbances, which can affect burrowing organisms (C. kraussi) and other marine benthic species on several biological scales. Organisms that are sensitive to the human disturbances can either die or be displaced while those that remain might be facilitated. These disturbances can result in changes in population and a shift in ecological processes which could ultimately lead to the decrease of biodiversity (Underwood and Peterson 1988). Do these human disturbances affect the population metrics of C. kraussi in the Langebaan Lagoon area and what are the casualties of human disturbances on benthic ecosystems?
C. kraussi is widely used as bait
All these human activities involve the trampling on the substratum which can alter the marine sediment physically and biochemically (Keough and Quinn 1998, Davenport and Davenport 2006).
There hasn’t been a great deal of experimental research in recent years on how human trampling affects the marine benthic ecosystems in sites where human disturbance are high and how these impacts affect species such as C. kraussi. Trampling on the marine sediment was long considered to be a side effect of bait collection in certain areas which results from animal removal and the method of capture (prawn pumps and digging) (Peterson 1977; Wynberg and Branch 1997; Contessa and Bird 2004).
I have only came across one paper that has analysed the direct effects of human footsteps on marine sediment and how this affects benthic communities and marine macro fauna. The study was done on a footpath used by pilgrims visiting the Holy Island in the Lindisfarne National Natural Reserve in the UK ) (Chandrasekara and Frid
kraussi and marine benthic communities have been overlooked and not recognised as threats to C. kraussi population metrics. However there are other types of human disturbances in the form of trampling such as leisure walks over the sediment that are now becoming a common tourist attraction especially in lagoons. Researchers and benthic ecologists can potentially be a further unintended source of disturbance when they repeatedly walk on the sediment to collect samples for experimental analysis. But how does trampling affect C. kraussi population and marine benthic communities?
On hard sediment, trampling can affect marine benthic organisms in a number of different ways by directly removing and crushing organism or indirectly by displacing other species that have a symbiotic relationship with the burrows these marine organisms forge such as the C. kraussi. The destruction of burrows through trampling doesn’t only destroy the organism that forged but also the other organisms that are housed in the same burrow (Brosnan and Crumrine 1994).
Trampling footsteps also results in the compaction of the sediment which could result in the alteration of nutrient exchange and oxygen between the sediment and the water which could ultimately modify population metrics and the distribution of animals in the soft sediment (Contessa and Bird