Spatial and temporal dynamics of Antarctic shallow soft-bottom benthic communities: ecological drivers under climate change

Table 4 Combinations of sediment grain size and sediment thickness yielding the best matches of biotic and abiotic similarity matrices as measured by a Spearmans rank correlation (ρ_s)

No. variables	ρ _s	Sediment properties	P
1	0.664	AFDM %	0.001
2	0.662	AFDM %, Mud %	0.001
1	0.661	Mud %	0.001
3	0.648	Sand %, Mud%, AFDM %	0.001
2	0.63	Mud %, Sand %	0.001
3	0.622	Mud %, Sediment depth, AFDM %	0.001

Relationships between sediment properties and the benthic assemblage calculated using PRIMER BEST Biota-environment (BIOENV) procedure
AFDM ash free dry mass

ISSN: 1472-6785