CHANGES IN THE INFAUNA OF A SANDY BEACH

The infaunal community of a sandy beach on the Solent Coast (Hampshire, UK) has been monitored monthly for four years (to date). The community is dominated by classic psammophilous polychaetes and peracarids. Multivariate analyses of the numeric data confirm a significant trend with time in the structure of this community, as well as the expected seasonal cycles, A radical change in community structure in 1989 was also detected, being more significant than seasonality. Possible causes of these changes, notably temperature and predation by Nephtys cirrosa, are considered in relation to complementary data peripheral both in space and time.