A population of Rangia cuneata (G.B. Sowerby I, 1831), an estuarine bivalve, has been recorded in the harbour of Antwerp, Belgium. This species is new to the European brackish water fauna. After initially finding only a few small individuals in August 2005, R. cuneata was encountered frequently in the pipes of the cooling water system of an industrial plant from February 2006 onwards. Before this present record, R. cuneata was only known from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast of North America.
Summary1. Monocultures of mussels might alter the infaunal benthic community of adjacent and interstitial sediments through provision of a complex habitat, input of organically rich material and larval removal through filter feeding. At a site of commercial seabed mussel cultivation, we aimed to determine the effect of mussels on the infaunal community of an intertidal mudflat at different spatial scales and under different stocking strategies. 2. Mussels were laid at four different densities (2, 3, 5 and 7·5 kg m − 2 ) on 400-m 2 plots in a 4 × 4 Latin square. Benthic samples were collected within and 10-100 m distant from the cultivation area c . 7 months prior to and 18 months after seeding the plots with blue mussels. Benthic community characteristics were related to initial seeding density and to the actual surface area of mussels associated with each set of samples collected within replicate plots. 3. The presence of mussels significantly changed the occurrence of some species of the infaunal community within the cultivated area. The infaunal communities supported fewer individuals and species than control treatments at all but the lowest mussel cover. 4. Species richness and the abundance of individuals per unit area also declined with increased area of mussel cover. The abundance of cirratulids and amphipods declined strongly with increasing mussel surface area. 5. Although the species composition and abundance of individual invertebrate species were altered by the presence of mussels, the distribution of individuals among species remained relatively unchanged. 6. Synthesis and applications . Overall, mussel beds changed the infaunal community, but the effects were localized (0-10 m) and not detectable at larger scales (10-100 m). Changes in benthic community composition could be reduced (but not eliminated) by lowering the stocking density of mussels to either 2 or 3 kg m − 2 . Given the small edge effects associated with cultivated mussel beds, the use of larger mussel beds would be preferable to many smaller mussel beds.
A habitat specific survey of the epifauna and fish fauna of sandbanks off the Welsh coastline was undertaken in 2001. Of these, three sandbanks were considered to represent extensions of shallow nearshore soft-sediment communities, while a further six sandbanks were considered to be distinct sandbanks; seabed features clearly defined in comparison with surrounding sediments. Multivariate community analyses revealed that the distinct sandbanks had both fish and epifaunal assemblages that were distinct from those sandbanks considered to be extensions of nearshore sediments. The distinct sandbanks were typified by low species diversity and shared indicator species such as the weever fish Echiichthys vipera, the shrimp Philocheras trispinosus and the hermit crab Pagurus bernhardus. Differences occurred in species composition among the distinct sandbanks, in particular, southern sandbanks were typified by sand sole Solea lascaris and small-eyed ray Raja microocellata. The sandbanks considered as extensions of nearshore sediments shared many similarities with the Pleuronectes platessa-Limanda limanda assemblage, identified by Ellis et al. (Estuar. Coastal Shelf Sci. 51 (2000) 299), which is widespread in the Irish Sea. Sandbanks, as a habitat definition under the EU habitats directive, are likely to incorporate a number of physically and biologically distinct habitats of which two have been described in the present study.
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