Volta

Metacommunity theory and metabarcoding reveal the environmental, spatial, and biotic drivers of meiofaunal communities in sandy beaches

Abstract Sandy beaches are important ecosystems providing coastal protection and recreation, but they face significant threats from human activities and sea level rise. They are inhabited by meiofauna, small benthic invertebrates that are highly abundant and diverse, but are commonly understudied biotic components of beach ecosystems. Here, we investigate the factors shaping meiofaunal metacommunities by employing Generalised Dissimilarity Modelling (GDM) and Joint Species Distribution Modelling (JSDM) to study community turnover and assembly processes. We analysed over 550 meiofauna samples from a >650 km stretch of the southern North Sea coastline using a metabarcoding approach. Our findings reveal that environmental factors, especially Distance from Low Tide and Sediment Grain Size, are important drivers of meiofauna community turnover. This highlights the influence …

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