Food quality and the heterogeneous spatial distribution of meiofauna

Several different experimental approaches were used to examine recruitment of benthic meiofauna to patches of selected species of algae. In one approach algal-coated, baited slides were incubated in a salt marsh littoral benthos. The second approach employed patches of algae arrayed equidistantly around an inoculum of meiofauna in a petri dish. Meiofauna were shown to be selectively recruited to patches of some species of algae but not to others. The evidence obtained supports a hypothesis that selective recruitment of meiofauna can be one mechanism which establishes the spatial heterogeneity so often observed in natural collections of meiofauna.