Comunidades de moluscos de las praderas de fanerogamas marinas (Zostera marina y Cymodocea nodosa) del sur de la Peninsula Iberica.

Zusammenfassung

Seagrasses meadows are one of the most important habitats on the soft bottoms of coastal waters around the world. This importance lies in the major richness and animal density that they support in comparison with the adjacent unvegetated bottoms. The composition of the molluscan assemblages associated to seagrasses meadows (Zostera marina and Cymodocea nodosa) in the coastal waters of the Western Mediterranean (Alboran Sea) is poorly known. Samples of macrobenthic fauna were collected during the summer 2004 at three localities off Southern Spain (two meadows of Cymodocea nodosa and one of Zostera marina). The sampling of each meadow was located on the four cardinal points (N, S, E, W). The taxonomic identification was carried out to the species level and a total of 45 different species were found. Seagrass biomass of the seagrass (leaves and rhizomes) was also quantified for each sample. Statistical analyses (univariate and multivariate) and correlations between the biomass and diversity were performed to test the influence of the meadow complexity to the composition of the malacological fauna. The preliminary results show a positive correlation between biomass and number of species.