Striking Century-Long Changes in Marine Benthos

Rutger Rosenberg^*

Department of Biology and Environmental Science—Kristineberg, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.

DOI: 10.4236/jep.2014.513125                

Abstract

One of the oldest published records of benthic fauna was made in 1893 by dredging along transects from soft bottoms, sand and shell debris to rocky bottoms in an archipelago at the Swedish Skagerrak coast. Three of the transects were revisited in 2010 and then fewer taxa were recorded and the shared species between sampling dates at the transects were only between 8% and 12%. The main causes for the drastic changes are suggested to be large-scale eutrophication changing the vegetation composition and variation of climatic factors.

Keywords

Marine Benthos

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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