A Comparison of the Intertidal Harpacticoid Copepod Assemblages of Sandy Beaches in Galway Bay (Ireland) And Northern Brittany (France)

Abstract

The comparative research programme on harpacticoid copepod assemblages of the west coast of Ireland and northern Finistere began in 1982. During 1981 in Galway, D. Jackson sampled three sandy beaches around Galway Bay (Figure 1), Grattan Road Strand, Silver Strand and An Poll Brean (on Mweenish Island) near Carna (simply called Carna in the following text) and was preparing his PhD thesis (Jackson, 1985). Between 1978 and 1984 in Brittany, P. Bodin had been conducting a long-term ecological survey (Bodin, 1988) of three sandy beaches polluted by the 'Amoco Cadiz' oil spill; Brouennou, Corn ar Gazel and Kersaint (Figure 2). As these six beaches shared common characteristics of granulometry, salinity, temperature and hydrodynamics, it was decided to undertake a comparative study of the systematics, ecology and biology of their harpacticoid copepod assemblages.