Spatial and temporal patterns of benthic community structure on the Savin Hill Cove mudflat

Randomly located contiguous core samples collected bimonthly in 1986 were used to analyze temporal and spatial patterns of benthic community structure on the Savin Hill Cove mudflat. The temporal and spatial patterns of benthic community structure are subsequently used to test the applicability of the spatio-temporal mosaic model of succession. Temporally, harpacticoid and oligochaete abundance patterns are closely tied to epipelic diatom production on the mudflat in spring. The polychaetes Pygospio elegans, Capitella sp., Streblospio benedicti, Chaetezone setosa and Eteone longa recruit in spring, and no clear association with epipelic diatom production is evident; the same is true for species recruiting in late summer and early fall. The combination of epipelic diatom primary production and the timing of juvenile recruitment are the primary factors determining the cyclical succession pattern observed on the mudflat.;The dispersion pattern and patch structure of meio- and macrofaunal benthic invertebrates at small spatial scales (;I tested the applicability of the spatio-temporal mosaic model of succession in describing small-scale, soft-bottom community structure. The multivariate patch structure is analyzed using multivariate spatial correlation analysis (MSC) and multivariate temporal changes are analyzed by hierarchically clustering the samples using the normalized expected species shared (NESS) similarity measure. MSC showed that fine-grained patch structure is present on each date at scales less than 1 dm...