Sub-catastrophic sewage and industrial waste contamination as revealed by marine nematode faunal analysis

Abstract

Studies in benthic biomonitoring have usually concentrated on the macrofauna. In theory the meiofauna possess characteristics which should facilitate their use in a biomonitoring role but unfortunately perceived difficulties in working with meiofaunal taxa have inhibited research into their application in this field. This paper reports an investigation into the effects of contamination at a subcatastrophic level on some marine nematode assemblages of beaches in the Clyde inland sea area, Scotland. Overall abundance and analysis of feeding types revealed localized contamination effects in samples from Ayr Bay compared with reference sites. Stochastic model or simple diversity analyses were not effective. Neutral model and cladistic analyses detected effects in all assemblages exposed to sub-catastrophic contamination.