Intertidal zonation of macroinfauna on a dissipative, sandy beach at De Panne (Belgium): a pilot study

To elucidate vertical (= from high to low water mark) macroinfaunal community patterns on little-studied Belgian dissipative sandy beaches, macroinfauna was sampled at eight stations along a seaward transect at De Panne. Mean sand particle size was 196 µm, and the beach slope was ca. 1 : 90. Nineteen species were collected (excluding non-quantitatively sampled species), nine of which were polychaetes and eight were crustaceans. Total macroinfaunal abundance per station ranged from 103 to 585 ind./ m². Polychaetes and crustaceans were numerically dominant, comprising more than 98% of total numb... Mehr ...