The use of macrobenthic communities in the evaluation of environmental change

Benthic animals are a key element of many marine and estuarine monitoring programs. They are, in contrast to e.g. plankton or fishes, sedentary and must adapt to environmental and human-induced disturbances or perish. They are immediately dependent on the quality of the overlying water and very sensitive to habitat disturbance. The benthos integrates the effects over a considerable period of time. Many fishes, birds and mammals depend directly or indirectly on the benthic fauna. However, monitoring the benthos is very costly involving ship-time and laboratory analysis that is very intensive. T... Mehr ...