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The Relationship between Soft-Bottom Macrobenthic Assemblages and Environmental Variables of Boojagh Marine National Park, Southern Caspian Sea, Iran.

Bahrebar Soheil, Negarestan Hossein, Maghsoudlou Abdolvahab, Danehkar Afshin.

Macrobenthic infauna and associated environmental factors influencing the benthic assemblages in the Southern coastal region of Caspian Sea were analyzed in five seasonal surveys from summer 2015 to summer 2016 (18 stations), in order to understand the assemblage structure and the factors influencing the benthic distribution. The results showed that sixteen macrobenthic species in total were collected from the research region. The composition of species was: Polychaeta (4 species); Mollusca (4); Crustacea (6); Clitellata (1) and Thecostraca (1), among which, all of species were common in the sampling of every season. The dominant species varied from season to season; however, the polychaete species Hypania invalida and Clitellata species Stenogammarus carausui were always present year-round. The results of CLUSTER analysis showed that the similarities of macrobenthic structures between the stations were low; most of the similarities in all seasons were at about 25-30% of similarity value, only two stations were up to 80%-90%. In accordance with the similarity values of the macrobenthic structures, we divided the 18 stations into five groups by the similarity level of 30%. Comparing sand percentages among transects, data based on Levene’s test were homogeneous (P>0.05). The results of one-way ANOVA showed that the differences between transects were highly significant (P<0.01). Results suggested that benthos was controlled by a combination of factors such as sediment structure, salinity, pH, the electrical conductivity, turbidity and temperature, and no single factor could be considered as a main influencing factor. Additionally, significant correlations between species abundances and the tested environmental factors were evident. This study highlights the potential consequences of established non-indigenous species in the Southern Caspian Sea.