1 PRESENTATION OF DR. NANCY J. MACIOLEK 



2 



3 DR. MACIOLEK: My presentation today is based on the results of 



4 programs funded by the Minerals Management Service, the Georges Bank 



5 Benthic Infauna Monitoring Program, conducted from July, 1981 until 



6 June, 1984, and a deep water characterizations study that was conducted 



7 between 1984 and 1986. 



8 The work was carried out jointly by Battel le Ocean Sciences and 



9 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. 



10 In both programs the benthos was sampled quantitatively at several 



11 stations, including stations in Lydonia Canyon and on the adjacent 



12 slope. Those canyon/slope stations were at three different water 



13 depths, approximately 150 meters, 550 meters, and 2,100 meters. 



14 The number of times a particular station was sampled ranged 



15 between three and eight. Because we saw very few seasonal effects, the 



16 way I'm going to present the results to you today will be essentially 



17 averaged over time for each particular station. 



18 Now, in order to assess the infaunal benthic community structure, 



19 we looked at the species that were present in each of our samples and 



20 the abundance, so we did counts for each of the very tiny organisms that 



21 we were looking at. 



22 Unlike the people that look at the megafauna, our animals are 



23 microscopic and very numerous and we spend a lot of time identifying and 



24 counting them. We then use these data to look at which species were the 



25 numerical dominance at stations on each sampling date and for the 



26 station over all the times sampled. 



27 We looked at diversity using both the Shannon-Weiner Information 



28 Index, and the Hobert Rarefaction Method. We also look at similarity 



29 among samples and stations in order to look for patterns or 



30 relationships among stations. 



31 As Page mentioned in addition to reviewing this type of 



32 information today, I'll also give you some information on the 



33 recolonization experiments that we did at 2,100 meters. 



34 (Slide presentation) 



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