Macrozoobenthos, National Monitoring Study 2019, EMBLAS Plus Project, EMBLAS Plus Project

Method steps

1. Anthozoa, Ascidiacea, Bivalvia, Gastropoda, Gymnolaemata, Hexanauplia, Holothuroidea, Insecta, Malacostraca, Ophiuroidea, Polychaeta, Rhabditophora
   rank: class

"Data collected within the EMBLAS-Plus “EU-UNDP Project 'Improving Environmental Monitoring in the Black Sea' (EMBLAS-Plus)” (http://emblasproject.org/). 31 samples taken in 19 coastal as well as shelf stations on the Ukrainian part (NMS UA). The distribution of stations on depth intervals was as follow: • 0 - 9 m: 16 stations; • 10 - 30 m: 3 stations; • 31 - 41 m: 1 station. The macrozoobenthos sampling followed the protocol described by Todorova & Konsulova (2005). Thus, all samples have been collected with a Van Veen grab with surface of 0.135 m2, washed through a 0.5 mm mesh size sieve, fixed with formaldehyde 4% buffered with seawater and finally stored in plastic jars. In laboratory, the organisms were identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were performed on abundance and biomass datasets. Similarity pattern was examined (Clarke & Warwick 2001). To define benthic communities and distinguish between groups, a complete linkage hierarchical clustering based on Bray-Curtis similarities (Clarke & Warwick 2001) applied to non-transformed data of mean biomass and abundance of each species has been used. To further investigate similarities and dissimilarities between clusters a SIMPER analysis (Clarke, 1993) was conducted."