Meiobenthic communities structure at different spatial scales on sandy beaches from a ria environment: The role of abiotic factors

Abstract

This work aimed to study meiobenthic communities at different spatial scales in a Galician estuary–ria (NW Spain), elucidating the role of abiotic factors on their structure. Rias are transitional environments with brackish habitats on their inner part and fully marine environments in the outer area, and Galician estuarine–rias are very productive habitats due to upwelling events. Results showed that meiobenthic communities from estuarine–ria beaches, even in the range of other temperate beaches not in rias, reported high number of taxa and density values probably due to the highest primary production associated with estuarine–ria environment. Meiobenthic community variability increased as the scale widens, showing significant differences among almost all the studied beaches. Selected environmental variables were, in general, useful for explaining the variability of the main taxa. Meiobenthic community structures for beaches with different exposure and distances from the inner part of the estuary–ria were significantly different. However, the environmental variables studied were not able to fully explain the significant variability of whole meiobenthic assemblages. This fact pointed to the possible importance of biological factors structuring meiobenthic communities on beaches within rias.

Keywords:

• Estuary–ria environment
• meiobenthos
• multivariate analysis
• sandy beaches
• spatial scales

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank L. Rubal and L. Veiga for sampling assistance and A. Marhadour for reviewing the final version of the manuscript. We are also grateful to two anonymous referees for all the helpful comments and suggestions, which greatly improved this paper.

Notes

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark