Spatial structure and ecological variation of meroplankton on the French-Belgian coast of the North Sea

The spatial pattern of specific populations or communities plays an important role in ecological theories such as species, diversity, community succession and stability. A method based on canonical correspondence ordination (CCA) and constrained ordination was used to partition the variation observed in the species abundance data matrix into four independent components: spatial, environmental, spatial+environmental, undermined. Mantel and partial Mantel test results were in accordance with CCA result.