Benthic secondary production have been estimated for three stations in regions of Delaware Bay and coastal Delaware during the period March, 1980 through November, 1981. Objectives of this study are to: 1) develop the methods for estimating benthic secondary production and assess their potential for evaluating the 11 health 11 of a marine benthic community, 2) estimate annual variation in production and turnover for select species as well as total communities and compare these results with a concurrent study on community structure, and 3) establish baseline data for production and turnover measurements of benthic communities in temperate Atlantic waters for comparison with subsequent production studies, i.e., in impacted areas of the NY Bight.

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