Meiofauna of the Mar Piccolo of Taranto (Ionian Sea), 2013-2014

Meiofauna monitoring in the Mar Piccolo of Taranto (Ionian Sea, southern Italy), 2013-2014 in the framework of the Italian flagship project RITMARE. In June 2013 and April 2014, sampling was carried out at four sites by scuba divers who collected five virtually undisturbed sediment cores using polycarbonate sample tubes (12.7 cm I.D. with a sample area of 127 cm2). In laboratory, one sediment core was subsampled by means of 3 cut-off plastic syringes (2.7 cm I.D., surface area of 5.72 cm2, 0-10 cm top sediment) in order to obtain three pseudoreplicates for the meiofauna. Meiofaunal organisms (38–1000 µm) were extracted from sediment subsamples by sieving each pseudoreplicate and by centrifuging the material retained by a 38 μm mesh net with Ludox HS-40 (density of 1.15–1.18 g cm−3). All meiobenthic organisms were counted and taxonomically classified to the main groups under a stereomicroscope (Olympus SZX12; final magnification of 32-40x)