COMMUNITY STRUCTURE OF MACROBENTHOS IN COASTAL WATER OFF YANTAI, EAST CHINA

To understand the status of macrobenthos community in coastal water off Yantai, East China, we analyzed the community succession and compared it with those of previous surveys. Several indices and methods were adopted, e.g. dominance index, diversity index, richness index, evenness index, Bray-Curtis similarity, and MDS(multidimensional scaling) ordination analysis. In total, 176 species were identified, of which Polychaeta dominated. Lumbrineris latreilli and Sternaspis scutata were dominant species in four seasons. The average values of biomass and abundance were 16.72g/m2 and 1022ind/m2, respectively. The community structure of macrobenthos was closely related to sediment type and depth. Some trends in the community had stayed for 20 years, i.e., the increase in Polychaeta species and decrease in Mollusk species, which could be resulted from anthropogenic activities, including waste discharge, mariculture and fishing, harbor building, and shipping.