Sediment Recruitment Experiment 4 (SRE4) was a large, long term (5 year) field experiment run at Casey Station (from 2001 to 2006) testing the effects of 4 different hydrocarbons on marine sediment ecosystems. Four different types of hydrocarbons were individually mixed with defaunated marine sediments and deployed in trays on the seabed at O'Brien Bay-1. Trays were collected after deployment periods of 5 weeks, 56 weeks, 62 weeks, 2 years and 5 years. In addition there was a bioturbation treatment using the burrowing urchin Abatus (at 56 weeks only). Samples were collected from 4 replicate trays of each treatment at each sampling time. Analyses were done of sediment hydrocarbon chemistry, microbial communities, meiofaunal communities, macrofaunal communities and diatom communities. The hydrocarbon treatments were: a synthetic Mobil lubricating oil; the same Mobil lubricating oil after 125? hours use in a vehicle engine; a Fuchs synthetic lubricating oil marketed as highly biodegradable; and Special Antarctic Blend diesel fuel (SAB). A control uncontaminated sediment treatment was used for comparison.
To determine the effects of hydrocarbons on marine sediment meiofaunal communities in Antarctica.
This is the dataset for meiofaunal communities in sediments in the experiment at Time 2 (56 weeks after deployment).
Only 2 replicates per tray (of each treatment) have been analysed. 2 replicates of each tray remain unsorted.
Access_Constraints:
These data are not yet publicly available.
Use_Constraints:
This data set conforms to the PICCCBY Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=SRE4_Meiofauna_T2 when using these data.