Fig. 9
Conceptual model for community dissimilarity of benthic macrofauna and for the ecological status of Caucahue Channel at different spatial scales of observation (i.e. factor of analysis). From top to bottom the factors are: AREA (northern, southern and outer), ENV (salmon, mussel and references), CENTER (Qi to Ci) and SITE (each sampling site, represented with a black circle). From the PERMANOVA analysis significant differences were observed for each of these 4 factors between their different levels of comparison, which are indicated by areas with segmented lines. The ascending and descending black arrows represent hierarchy links present from the entire study AREA to the sampling sites (SITE) and vice versa. The black arrows pointing in two ways represent the relationship between the sampling sites and each of the replicates used for the estimations of ecological status using AMBI. The color circles represent a spatially explicit environmental traffic light to the smallest spatial scale possible (i.e., each replicate). For each of the factors studied in the Caucahue Channel (AREA, ENV and CENTER) it is possible to identify replicates (i.e. sampling SITES) ranging from undisturbed (blue circles) to moderately disturbed (yellow circles). For further details see the Discussion section