Macrofauna community patterns in a Chiloe Island channel used intensely for aquaculture: the ecological status of its benthic environment

Table 5 Results of the marginal test for DISTLM analysis, using the BEST procedure for the Bray-Curtis resemblance matrix based on abundance (a) and biomass (b). Data were standardized and then fourth-root transformed. P(perm) < 0.05 values are in bold. BIC = Bayesian Information Criterion. SS = Sum of Squares. For the DISTLM analysis we used all the data described in Table 3. In what follows we only present the first 10 best environmental variables according to BIC criteria. Res. d.f. = 45 (Abundance and Biomass analysis)

Variable	SS	Pseudo-F	P	BIC
a) Abundance
Mean Grain Size (mm)	5944.1	2.655	0.003	368.20
Sorting (mm)	5779.5	2.577	0.004	368.27
Surface pH	5393.8	2.396	0.006	368.45
Seafloor pH	4727.1	2.086	0.016	368.76
% Gravel	4726.3	2.086	0.016	368.76
TOM (%)	4654.6	2.053	0.016	368.80
% Mud	4332.8	1.905	0.027	368.94
Seafloor temperature (°C)	4312.6	1.896	0.030	368.95
Depth (m)	4155.9	1.824	0.032	369.03
Surface temperature (°C)	3920.7	1.717	0.053	369.13
b) Biomass
Mean Grain Size (mm)	7008.4	2.529	0.002	378.23
Sorting (mm)	6705.8	2.414	0.002	378.34
TOM (%)	6413.2	2.303	0.003	378.45
Surface pH	6002.4	2.149	0.006	378.61
% Gravel	5667.3	2.023	0.010	378.73
Seafloor temperature (°C)	5522.6	1.969	0.012	378.79
% Mud	5514.1	1.966	0.013	378.79
Seafloor pH	5498	1.960	0.013	378.80
Depth (m)	4496.5	1.591	0.055	379.17
Surface temperature (°C)	4410.8	1.559	0.061	379.20

ISSN: 0717-6317