Understanding the diversity and community composition of marine communities in coastal areas is of utmost importance to understand how overlapping anthropogenic pressures impact the marine environment. The demersal and epibenthic communities of the Portuguese northern continental shelf were surveyed using a bottom trawl to understand their taxonomic composition, abundance, spatial distribution, and their relationship with environmental variables such as sediment, organic matter, depth and latitude. Bottom sediments were homogenous, being mainly composed by sand particles. The diversity of the study area was low, but high abundance of important commercial species, as Trisopterus luscus, Trachurus trachurus, Palaemon serratus and Merluccius merluccius, in the juvenile stage of life, points out the importance of the area as nursery grounds. Four assemblages were identified, with a visible geographical pattern. Results obtained supply background information that may contribute to the development of future management and monitoring plans for this important and sensible coastal area.

了解沿海地区海洋社区的多样性和社区组成对于了解重叠的人为压力如何影响海洋环境至关重要。使用底部拖网对葡萄牙北部大陆架的海底和表生动物群落进行了调查，以了解它们的分类学组成，丰度，空间分布及其与环境变量（如沉积物，有机质，深度和纬度）的关系。底部沉积物是均匀的，主要由沙粒组成。研究区域的多样性较低，但重要的商业物种有很多，如三角龙，trachurus trachurus，salatus serratus和merluccius meluccius，在青少年时期指出了该地区作为托儿所的重要性。确定了四个集合体，它们具有明显的地理格局。获得的结果提供了可能有助于该重要而明智的沿海地区的未来管理和监测计划发展的背景资料。