Analysis of community attributes of the benthic meiofauna of Frierfjord/Langesundfjord

Abstract

Sublittoral meiofauna was sampled for the GEEP Workshop along a putative pollution gradient at 6 sites in FrierfjordlLangesundfjord, Norway. Data were subjected to mutivariate statistical analyses which discriminate between sites on their faunlstic attributes, and univariate measures of community stress were determined. Most mulhvariate techniques produced similar results. The copepod component of the meiofauna discriminated between sites better than the nematodes at the species level, but nematodes were more robust to analyses based on data aggregated to higher taxonomic levels. It is concluded that pollution monitoring at the community level using higher taxonomic groupings of meiofauna is viable, and renders such studies much less time-consuming and more cost-effective than more standard procedures. Appropriate taxonomic levels for the 2 major meiofaunal taxa (nematodes and copepods) and for the total meiofauna are discussed. There is a paucity of validated univariate measures of community perturbation available for use with meiofauna. Traditional diversity measures were rather uninformative, but the community at one site was identified as being adversely affected by pollution.