Meiofauna of some sandy beaches of Andaman Islands

Abstract

Comparatively high meiofauna numbers were recorded from beaches having fine sand particles than those having coarse to medium sand particles The fauna was dominated mainly by nematodes (53.7%), harpacticoids (13.7%) and polychaetes (12.8%) On all the beaches, meiofauna concentrated in the upper 4 cm layer of the sediment Nematodes, polychaetes and oligochaetes were present throughout the column of 10 cm core