Soft sediment meiofauna community responses to environmental pollution gradients in the German Bight and at a drilling site off the Dutch coast

During the Bremerhaven Workshop, the meiofaunal communities along 2 supposed North Sea pollution gradients, one at a drilling site off the Dutch coast and the other across the German Bight, were analysed by a variety of univariate and multivariate techniques and the changes on community structure related to a suite of measured environmental variables. At the drilling site the only evidence of change in community structure was a slight reduction in the abundance of nematodes in the deeper parts of the sediment (2 to 10 cm) close to the drilling site. Otherwise, there were no significant differe... Mehr ...