10.1371/journal.pone.0143637 Nina Steffani Nina Steffani Safiyya Sedick Safiyya Sedick John Rogers John Rogers Mark John Gibbons Mark John Gibbons Infaunal Benthic Communities from the Inner Shelf off Southwestern Africa Are Characterised by Generalist Species Public Library of Science 2015 community structure Infaunal Benthic Communities Generalist Species Infaunal communities diversity Benguela upwelling ecosystem species 2015-11-30 03:45:07 Dataset https://plos.figshare.com/articles/dataset/_Infaunal_Benthic_Communities_from_the_Inner_Shelf_off_Southwestern_Africa_Are_Characterised_by_Generalist_Species_/1614572 <div><p>Infaunal communities of benthic macro-organisms (≥ 1mm length) were studied from 81 samples collected across nine sites to the north and south of the Orange River in the Benguela upwelling ecosystem in 2003, with a view to describing communities and understanding the drivers of regional community structure, as well as to document diversity and to examine geographic affinities. Although the fauna was dominated by polychaetes and peracarid crustaceans, patterns in community structure could only weakly be explained by the measured environment (~35%). This is attributed to the generalist nature of the species recovered, which were widely distributed amongst different sediments, water-depths and latitudes. The fauna is dominated by species that enjoy a widespread regional and global distribution and is characterised by relatively low diversity, which is discussed.</p></div>