Comparison of granulometric methods and sampling strategies used in marine habitat classification and Ecological Status assessment

► Best PSA method to explain faunal distribution is combined laser and sieve analysis. ► Pre-treatment with peroxide reduces multivariate faunal variance explained by PSA. ► EUNIS sediment classification and IQI outputs are robust to changes in PSA method. ► Independent PSA samples explain faunal pattern better than faunal grab subsamples.