Meiofauna in closed coastal saline lagoons in the United Kingdom: Structure and biodiversity of the nematode assemblage

Coastal saline lagoons are rare in North West Europe and tend to be closed, brackish water systems. In the United Kingdom they are small and isolated, each exhibiting extremely variable habitat conditions, both spatially and temporally. This paper represents the first species-level study of lagoonal nematode assemblages in the UK. Samples were taken from seven ponds in a saline lagoon system on the south coast of England in order to describe the nematode assemblage in relation to habitat type and to assess the possibility of lagoonal specialisation. At each site samples were also taken, or data were already available, for salinity, sediment granulometry, sediment organic carbon content, photosynthetic pigments and lagoon topography.