We provide abundance data for meiofauna taxa determined from sediment samples collected on the sandy-beach water line of Ahrenshoop (Baltic Sea). Five sampling stations lay within the zone impacted by the sand nourishment between the boundary of the nature reserve in the north east and a site just north of the breakwater (AH01-AH05). An unaffected reference station was located south of Ahrenshoop (close to Niehagen) at the end of the road Pappelallee (PAP). Samples were collected at four dates. The first sampling was carried out before the sand nourishment took place (T0: 14 September 2021). Three samplings were realised after the impact: T1 (23 March 2022), T2 (27 September 2022), and T3 (28 March 2023). Latitude and longitude of each sampling location per station were recorded at each sampling date using a hand-held GPS application on a mobile phone. At the stations sampling locations varied over time. Prior to the sand nourishment the beach was narrow due to sand erosion in previous years. After the nourishment the additional extent of the beach was approximately 40 m at sampling date T1. Subsequently, progressive sand erosion forced the sampling locations (situated at the water line) further inland at T2 and T3.
Samples were taken from the beach-water interface (water line) in the middle of the area between two groynes. Plexiglass cores (inner core diameter 5.4 cm) were inserted vertically into the sediment down to 15 cm depth. Each core was sliced in 5 cm-layers (0-5, 5-10 and 10-15 cm). Sediment horizons were preserved in 96-99% ethanol. The organisms were extracted by decantation over a 32-μm sieve. The total number of individuals per taxon was counted and is presented as individuals per 10 cm².
In the framework of our monitoring samples were primarily taken for a large-scale metabarcoding study on meiofauna communities. One core per station and sampling date was reserved for morphology-based community analyses. Here we present the results for the stations AH01, AH03, AH05, and PAP. We selected these stations because of their location at both ends and in the center of the impacted zone (AH01, AH03, AH05) and at the control site (PAP). The meiofauna (32-1000 µm) was mostly represented by Copepoda, Nematoda, Platyhelminthes, Gastrotricha, and some Annelida. We counted 27445 individuals in total, encompassing 10 higher taxa. We counted copepod nauplii separately due to their small body size. We defined the combined group "Plathyhelminthes+Diurodrilus sp." because members of the annelid genus Diurodrilus sp. are not distinguishable from Platyhelminthes under the stereomicroscope.
The meiofauna abundance data are part of a larger ecological study on the influence of sand nourishment on meiofauna communities, which included grain-size and metabarcoding analyses (see Related to and Supplement to).
