Sieving: The contents of the box corer were emptied in plastic tubs and in order to break up the sediment, filtered
seawater was added in the tub and stirred gently. The sediment was washed several times gently by adding filtered sea in
order to soften the material and make it suitable for sieving. The macrobenthos are usually retained on 0.5 mm sieve
(Thompson et al., 1993).
After sieving, all organisms, shell fragments and coarse sediment grains were transferred to plastic containers and
were fixed in 10% formalin containing Rose Bengal. After fixation, the containers were well labelled and kept for further
laboratory analysis and identification of specimens.