Characters of a macrobenthic community off the Changjiang River Estuary

The characters of macrobenthic community off the Changjiang River Estuary are approached based on the data collected from the 20 sampling stations using the multivariate analysis software PRIMER,of which CLUSTER,MDS,Abundance/Biomass curve(ABC)and DIVERSE function part are adopted.The results show that 154 species were found in the area,including 60 species of Polychaeta,30 of Crustacea,28 of Mollusca and 24 of Echinodermata;the dominant species are not very distinct,the relative important or common species are Listriolobus sp.,Xenophthalmus pinnotheroides White and Cossurella dimorpha Hartman.The results of CLUSTER and MDS analysis show that the structure of the macrobenthic communities in the 20 stations are very different,the value of their Bray-Curtis similarity varies in 10%-30%,with exception of those from the stations A12 and E42 where values of the Bray-Curtis similarity are up to 50%.The results of the ABC analysis show that the macrobenthic community at the stations close to the Changjiang River Estuary had been affected by pollution or other human beings activities.