The size structure of a lacustrine zoobenthic community

Data from Mirror Lake, New Hampshire, are used to construct the first quantitative description of the size structure of a freshwater benthic animal community. Size spectra of the benthic animal community, whether expressed as animal density, biomass, species richness, or assimilation, are generally unimodal. These spectra are strikingly different from the characteristically bimodal size spectra reported for marine benthic communities. There is no indication in these size spectra that the meiofauna and macrofauna are distinct ecological entities in Mirror Lake, as has been suggested for marine benthic communities.