Data on feeding biology was used to investigate distribution patterns of benthic polychaetes of the Middle Atlantic Bight off the United States East Coast. Feeding biology classifications used in the analyses were based on (1) gut-contents analyses of polychaetes collected in the study area; and (2) recent publications regardmg polychaete feeding. Proportion of carnivorous polychaetes was greatest in coarser sedlments, and decreased significantly with water depth across the continental shelf. Surface-deposit feeders numerically dominated most habitats. Abundance of surface-deposit feeders decreased across the continental shelf and sharply increased at the shelf break, paralleling the pattern of water-column production. Proportion of subsurface-deposit feeders was greatest in finesedlrnent habitats, and increased significantly with depth and percent organic carbon across the continental shelf. Sessile polychaetes generally inhabited physically stable habitats. Proportion of sessile polychaetes was positively correlated with percent silt and clay and percent organic carbon.Feeding and motility categories were generally more useful in distinguishing habitats than were morphology categories. Apparently, distribution and abundance of surface-deposit feeders were regulated by food resources from water-column production, and distnbution of sessile polychaetes was limited primarily by physical disturbance.

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Trophic ecology of macrobenthic communities in estuaries of the northern Gulf of Mexico was used to infer community function, determine effects of contaminants on macrobenthos, and provide insight into community responses following disturbance. The taxa that numerically dominated the region included few large, deep-burrowing suspension feeders that typify estuaries elsewhere. This pattern is indicative of disturbance, and results in dominance by trophic groups that live near the sediment–water interface (early benthic-community succession). Trophic structure was significantly related to several sediment contaminants (especially metals, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, DDT), and three environmental gradients (salinity, depth, and sediment silt–clay content). Generally, trophic diversity increased and proportion of subsurface-deposit feeders (SSDF) decreased with salinity, meaning that a more even distribution of trophic structure was found at high-salinity stations. The trophic shift toward dominance by shallow, subsurface-deposit feeders in contaminated habitats may have dire implications for fisheries. Several important commercial and recreational fisheries of the region depend on fish that feed primarily at the sediment surface. Higher proportion of subsurface-deposit feeders, coupled with low macrobenthic density in contaminated sediments, may imply that limited energy is transferred to higher trophic levels.

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Effects of pollution on biotic integrity are difficult to identify when correlations occur between environmental gradients and contaminant effects, as they do in estuaries. In this broad-scale study, we used canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) to distinguish influences of natural and contaminant-related gradients on macrobenthic community structure among 319 sites from estuaries throughout the northern Gulf of Mexico. Natural gradients in salinity, depth, and sediment composition obscured the detection of macrobenthic responses to sediment contamination. After adjusting for natural environmental variability, however, partial CCA revealed important macrobenthic variation in relation to sediment contamination. A rotated principal component analysis (PCA) distinguished five composite environmental factors, each largely reflecting contaminant or natural variation. Two complex gradients in sediment contamination identified by the PCA diverged in partial CCA space and correlated with different macrobenthic indicator taxa. Contaminant gradients represented variation in two different classes of sediment contaminants: trace metals and organic chemicals. Dispersion patterns of CCA site coordinates enabled cross validation of implied contamination-related variation in community function and the utility of several interpretive or management metrics. Trophic diversity decreased with sediment contamination, linking shifts in macrobenthic community function and community structure along contaminant gradients. The CCA model complemented an earlier benthic index developed from these data to examine biotic integrity, but the benthic index could not discern macrobenthic responses to the different contaminant gradients. Neither was the benthic index useful for showing transitions in macrobenthic community structure commensurate with different levels of contamination. Ampelisca amphipod sediment bioassays were inadequate for identifying contaminant effects on biotic integrity, whereas Mysidopsis mysid sediment bioassays conservatively reflected sediment contamination and associated macrobenthic indicators.