Effects of Sabella spallanzanii physical structure on soft sediment macrofaunal assemblages

Abstract

Effective management of introduced species requires an understanding of their effects on native species and the processes that structure the habitat. The introduced European polychaete Sabella spallanzanii dominates epifaunal assemblages in south-eastern Australia, yet little is known about how it affects the structure of the surrounding assemblages. The present study investigated the differences between infaunal assemblages in the presence and absence of S. spallanzanii using clumps of real and mimic polychaetes. Both the real and mimic clumps had the same effect on an existing assemblage with fewer numbers of small crustaceans in the sediment under the clumps. The effects of S. spallanzani..