ABSTRACT
Macrofauna include all metazoan organisms broader than 300 µm and exclude any permanent meiofaunal taxa such as nematodes, harpacticoid copepods, and ostracods (Hessler and Jumars 1974). In the past, different mesh sizes have been used, setting the lower limit to 1.0 mm and then 0.5 mm, but the use of a smaller mesh size is recommended for studies aiming at identifying the different stages of the life cycle (Buchanan and Warwick 1974; Hartley 1982). Soft-bottom macrobenthic communities in the deep sea are mainly composed of infaunal organisms, mainly including polychaetes, amphipod and decapod crustaceans, bivalve mollusks, and echinoderms.
