Meiofauna and nematodes in cold seep surface sediments collected during Maria S. Merian cruise MSM13 to the Eastern Mediterranean area

Compared to the reference samples, nematode densities were generally higher, with a low genus diversity, and a high dominance of only a few species, some of them being present in all three seep areas. When determining the scale of turnover using relative genera proportions, it appeared that the highest turnover rate was present between seeps (macro-scale). However, calculating the turnover based on presence/absence transformed nematode genera data showed the highest turnover rate between replicate samples (micro-scale) and habitats of the same seep (meso-scale).

This shows that nematode assemblages are patchily distributed, even in a single habitat, and implicates that the sampling effort during sampling campaigns should be focused on replicate sampling and multiple habitats of the same seep. This way a more complete image of the present nematode community will be obtained.