Collected reprints: Abstract 3682

Collected reprints

Abstract

Heip, C. (1980). Meiobenthos as a tool in the assessment of marine environmental quality. Rapp. P.-v. Réun. Cons. Int. Explor. Mer 179: 182-187

The assessment of the impact of pollution on the marine environment depends on the possibility of prediction either by comparison or more ideally by the analysis of time series which are long enough. Obtaining data for the construction of these time series should be one of the principal goals of monitoring. Parameters which are measured should have a low variability in time and in space or low frequency. The analysis of meiobenthic communities in the North Sea and the adjacent estuaries shows that harpacticoid copepods are especially suitable as the number and the nature of the species are stable and density, biomass, and diversity are characterized by the absence of variance in the high frequencies. Nematodes, though overwhelmingly abundant, are more variable and less easily determined, but their overall density is probably a quite stable parameter.

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