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Diversity and temporal variation of peracarid fauna (Crustacea: Peracarida) in the shallow subtidal of a sandy beach: Playa América (Galicia, NW Spain)
Author(s) -
Moreira Juan,
Gestoso Loreto,
Troncoso Jesús S.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
marine ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.668
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1439-0485
pISSN - 0173-9565
DOI - 10.1111/j.1439-0485.2007.00195.x
Subject(s) - peracarida , fauna , crustacean , abundance (ecology) , ecology , oceanography , sediment , macrobenthos , geology , geography , biology , paleontology
Peracarids (Crustacea: Peracarida) are an important component of soft‐sediment faunas and are considered good indicators of quality of water and sediments. Nevertheless, little is known about diversity of peracarid crustaceans on the shallow subtidal sediments of Playa América, a sandy beach in the Ensenada de Baiona (Galicia, NW Spain). Therefore, the peracarid fauna of its shallow subtidal zone was studied in a fine‐sand site at 4‐m depth from February 1996 to February 1997. Monthly sampling yielded a total of 4753 individuals belonging to 60 species. Amphipods were dominant in number of individuals and species followed by cumaceans. The assemblage showed a stable composition in species through the year and was numerically dominated by a few species, namely the amphipods Siphonoecetes kroyeranus and Microprotopus maculatus and the cumacean Pseudocuma longicorne . These species showed large monthly fluctuations in abundance, with maximal values between summer and autumn.