NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY ............................................................................................. 1 A. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 3 B. METHODS ..................................................................................................................... 5 B.1 Survey Rationale and Positioning of the Sampling Stations ............................................. 5
C. RESULTS .................................................................................................................... 19 C.1 Composition of the Seabed ...................................................................................... 19
C.1.1 Particle Size Analysis ......................................................................................... 19 C.1.2 Multivariate Statistical Analysis of EAOW Sediment Data ......................................... 22
C.2. Nature of the Benthic Fauna .................................................................................... 26 C.2.1 Composition of the Benthos ................................................................................ 26
C.2.2 Distribution of Abundance, Taxonomic Richness and Biomass .................................. 29 C.2.3 Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Infauna ............................................................ 33
C.2.4 Relating the Multivariate Patterns within the Sediment Data to the Multivariate Patterns within the Faunal Data ............................................................................................... 36
C.3 Targeted Sampling ................................................................................................. 37 C.3.1 The Distribution of Species of Interest .................................................................. 38
C.4 Nature of the Epibenthos ......................................................................................... 46 C.4.1 Composition of the Epifauna ............................................................................... 46
C.4.2 Distribution of Epifaunal Abundance, Taxonomic Richness and Biomass ..................... 48 C.4.3 The Distribution of Epifaunal Species of Interest .................................................... 52 C.4.4 Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Epifauna ........................................................... 56
D. HABITAT MAPPING .................................................................................................... 59 D.1 Introduction to Habitat Mapping ............................................................................... 59
D.1.1 Seabed sediment Folk map ................................................................................. 59 D.1.2 Level 4 EUNIS physical habitat model .................................................................. 61 D.1.3 Faunal model ................................................................................................... 64
