Estonian marine phytobenthos monitoring programme: preliminary results and future perspectives

Institute of Zoology and Hydrobiology, Univers ity of Tartu, Vanemuise 46, 51014 Tartu, Estonia Received 15 April 2002, in revised form 2 July 2002 Abstract. A phytobenthos monitoring programme has been carried out in Estonian coastal waters since 1995. Monitoring activities include six sea areas representing different sets of environmental conditions and anthropogenic impact. Methods used in the programme are based on internationally accepted techniques developed for the HELCOM COMBINE programme. During the observation period, the most important events described were the decline of the Fucus vesiculosus population in the northern Gulf of Riga and the Vainameri ar ea, which has triggered several changes in phyto-benthic communities. A new invertebrate species for Estonian coastal waters, Orchestia cavimana, was described in Kudema Bay in 1999. Its population has remained stable since then. In the nearest future the phytobenthos monitoring programme will be reorganized in connection with the implementation of EU WFD in Estonia and the need to include new sea areas in the monitoring activities. Key words: phytobenthos, monitoring, Baltic Sea.