The Bay of Málaga is located in a biodiversity hotspot with high productivity that favors a
wide variety of commercial and non-commercial species as well as fishing fleet types. Benthic and
demersal fauna from circalittoral soft bottoms of this bay have been studied using a benthic dredge
(8 sampling stations in December 2013) and an otter trawl (8 sampling stations on a seasonal basis).
Sediment and water properties have also been studied in order to analyze their relationships with
the benthic and demersal communities. A total of 287 spp. have been found, being molluscs and
fishes the most diverse and abundant ones in the samples. A low number of species (44 spp.) were
only collected with both sampling gears, indicating the importance on combining sampling methods
in biodiversity studies. Benthic dredge samples displayed some differences in relation to depth and
sediment types, whereas differences of otter trawl samples seemed to be more influenced by
seasonal changes. SIMPER analyses indicated that temporal variation was due to seasonal changes of
abundance of some species of commercial interest. This seasonal variability should be taken into
account in further management of this area as a potential new Fisheries Reserve.Versión del edito