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The article examines the spatial and seasonal distribution of macrobenthic invertebrates in Mediterranean solar saltworks ecosystems. Within ecosystems, results showed that the spatial variability at the regional level was greater than seasonal variability. Spatial variability in the salinity and confinement gradient levels was greater than within-level variability. In both its spatial and seasonal aspects, the abiotic environment was found to be critical in determining the macrobenthic community structure. It was found that biotic factors play a significant role in structuring the macrobenthic fauna.

Meadows of Posidonia oceanica harbor rich biodiversity and ecosystem functions, yet Biological Traits Analysis on the resident benthic communities are lacking. This study aims to provide insight on the functional diversity of polychaetes communities, a dominant benthic group, between the different habitat types of P. oceanica (plain meadow, strips/patches and dead matte), as well as pilot indicators of habitat modification. The results showed how specific traits relate to the different habitat types. Plain meadow was different to strips/patches and dead matte in functional composition, diversity and thus, the ecosystem functions involved. However, an overlap was observed in functional composition between dead matte and living P. oceanica, due to the remaining matte structure. This highlights the importance of the former on ecosystem functioning and the serious consequences of its current exclusion from conservational legislation. In addition, the classification of species to ecosystem engineering types showed interesting potential as an indicator., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)