Isabel Medina Fantauzzi, University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez

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Abstract:

The Chesapeake Bay plume is thought to be an injector of energy into the shallow coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Identifying how the Plume affects and influences benthic invertebrates is important for understanding how connectivity across terrestrial-to-marine environments affects the biomass, biodiversity, and abundance of benthic macrofauna (e.g., polychaete, oligochaetes, bivalves). The hypotheses for this study were that there would be a peak in species biodiversity at benthic samples collected where there was intermediate plume influence, and that biomass and abundance is higher in sites closer to the mouth of the plume and lower in sites farthest from the bay. Macrofauna recovered from sites were enumerated, aggregated, and weighed by taxonomic groups. It was found that some factors of the plume influence biomass, abundance, and diversity of species.