Using foraminifera to assess changes in marine coastal habitats of Caribbean Panama since the Middle Holocene

Humans settled the Bocas del Toro archipelago of Caribbean Panama ∼690 CE. Coastal land was cleared for agriculture in the late 1880s and in recent decades water quality degradation has been detected. To investigate changes that support a decline in water quality and to assess differences in salinity caused by increased runoff from cleared lands, benthic foraminifera of Almirante Bay served as an environmental proxy to compare modern and Middle Holocene times. The foraminiferal community structure of 17 modern mangrove, seagrass, and coral reef habitats <2 m deep was analyzed in combination with 18 samples of ∼6600-year-old coral reef, seagrass and muddy molluscan biofacies from Isla Colón island.

The foraminiferal communities' species and diversity overlap considerably among habitats of both ages, and there is more difference in species' proportions between the ages than among habitats of either age. These patterns reflect high connectivity across adjacent habitats in this embayed, patch-reef setting. Assemblages from Middle Holocene molluscan muds and modern mangroves are least diverse, fairly similar, and well differentiated from those of seagrass and coral habitats. Foraminiferal wall structure suggests more freshwater input in modern times, consistent with forest clear-cutting for agriculture, although both ages fall within the low end of normal salinity. Increased freshwater input influenced assemblage changes but they were not sufficient to reduce measured diversity. Reported declines in the bay's water quality have also not resulted in net foraminiferal diversity loss from ∼6600 years ago, indicating substantial resilience in these extremely shallow, tropical coastal communities.