**3. Results and discussion**

Emerging pollutants (ECs) from industrial production or agricultural runoff enter coastal waters and cause negative impacts on benthic organisms. Meiobenthic organisms, particularly free-living marine nematodes, because of their short life cycles and rapid metabolic rates, are considered ideal for laboratory experiments [13–17]. Many studies have investigated the impact of various ECs on these animals from two famous Tunisian ecosystems "Bizerte and Ghar el Meleh lagoons":

### **3.1 Ghar el Meleh nematodes response**
