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The Diversity of Nematode Communities in the Southern North Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

C. Heip  and
W. Decraemer
C. Heip
Affiliation:
Zoology Department, State University of Ghent, Belgium
W. Decraemer
Affiliation:
Zoology Department, State University of Ghent, Belgium
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Extract

Diversity is one of the most important parameters used in the description of a community; several theories relating diversity to other phenomena as predation, competition and stability have been proposed (Pianka, 1966). As a result of the increasing interest in diversity a number of studies have appeared during recent years, but the meiofauna has until recently been almost completely neglected, rather surprisingly when one considers the importance of this group of organisms in all marine benthic communities. Coull (1972) studied recently the diversity of harpacticoid copepods, with nematodes the major meiobenthic component, along the North Carolina shelf and in the deep sea. Warwick & Buchanan (1970) appear to be the only ones to have studied diversity in nematode communities, using α of the logarithmic series (Fisher, Corbett & Williams, 1943) as a diversity measure. The paucity of data seems primarily to be due to the taxonomic difficulties encountered in studying nematodes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , February 1974 , pp. 251 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1974

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References

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