Macrofaunal Biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sandy Beach Environment

Information collected both from sampling activities in the Eastern and Western Mediterranean sandy beaches as well as from the literature has reveled: (i) Severe fluctuations in the values of the abiotic data, consistent with the “multicausal environmental severity hypothesis”; (ii) A tentatively defined zoogeocline from the Eastern to the Western Mediterranean; (iii) Many of the sandy beaches show higher than expected Taxonomic Distinctness values, a fact which is indicative of the less scientific effort spent, and which results in many oligo- or monotypic taxa; (iv) The most plausible results were derived from the taxon of polychaetes, which have also proved to be a successful indicator taxon in other transitional Mediterranean ecosystems.