Infauna are an ecologically important component of marine benthic ecosystems and are the most common faunal assemblage used to assess habitat quality. Compared to the shallower waters of the continental shelf, less is known about the benthic fauna from the continental slope, especially how the communities are structured by natural gradients and anthropogenic stressors. The present study was conceived to rectify these data gaps...

Quantitative biological assessment indices overcome many of the challenges faced when trying to convey the status or trends of complex biological communities with large natural variability, particularly when attempting to evaluate the impacts from human influences. In this paper, we developed a biological condition index for shallow (