Abstract

Macrofaunal community composition of ten exposed sandy beaches in northern New South Wales, Australia, appeared to correlate with beach morphodynamic state even though the data represented sampling at only a single time. Better results were obtained by using the Beach State Index (BSI) rather than the dimensionless fall velocity (&OHgr;). Species number and abundance significantly increased as the BSI value increased, whereas biomass was not correlated with BSI. The New South Wales beaches had a higher species number and abundance relative to BSI than did beaches in a published review of beaches around the world.