Effects of biodiversity, measured as richness of meiofaunal taxa and nematode expected species number ES(51), on ecosystem functioning, as prokaryotic heterotrophic production before and after the removal of the covariables’ effect: longitude, sediment biopolymeric organic C content and the protein to carbohydrate ratio.

<p>In the regression analyses, all tests were based on Euclidean distances calculated among observations from untransformed data, using all data from different regions and habitats. The following abbreviations are used: R² = regression coefficient, SS = sum of squares, Pseudo-F = statistic F; P = probability level (*** = P<0.001; * = P<0.05).