Spearman rank correlations between station-level nematode and environmental variables.

Environmental variables: POC flux (annual particulate organic carbon flux to the seafloor), chl-a (chlorophyll a), CPE (chloroplastic pigment equivalents), chl-a:phaeo (chlorophyll a: phaeopigments ratio), TOM (% of total organic matter), TOC (% of total organic carbon), TN (% of total nitrogen), C:N (molar carbon: nitrogen ratio) MGS (median grain size) and mud. Nematode variables: density, total and ind. biomass, and relative abundances of feeding types 1A (selective deposit feeders), 1B (non-selective deposit feeders), 2A (epistrate feeders) and 2B (predators/scavengers). Correlations between genus composition (genus comp.) and environmental variables were obtained through the RELATE procedure. The number of asterisks denotes the statistical significance level with *P≤0.05, **0.05