The relationship between soft-bottom macrobenthic communities and environmental variables in Singaporean waters

Univariate and multivariate methods were used to study soft-bottom macrobenthos collected in December 2002 from the coastal waters of Singapore. The univariate parameters and community structure of benthic communities were related to environmental variables. Three samples were taken with a 0.1 m2 Van Veen grab (33 × 30 × 15 cm) at each station from 12 sampling stations of two different geographical areas. The water depth ranged from 6.5 m to 34.0 m. The mean values of species number, abundance and species diversity (H′) were 24 species/grab, 77 animals/grab and 3.35/grab, respectively. A total of 172 species was recorded. Total petroleum hydrocarbons were strongly negatively related to species number, abundance and species diversity, suggesting that petroleum hydrocarbons have harmful effects on macrobenthic communities. The BIO-ENV analyses for all stations identified median particle size, silt-clay content, salinity and Zn as the major environmental variables influencing the infaunal patterns. However, separate analyses for two areas produced stronger correlations and different best-correlated environmental variable combinations. Total petroleum hydrocarbons were the only common factor in both areas, showing the importance of petroleum contamination in determining the community structure of benthic infauna in Singaporean waters.