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The first European Marine Biology Symposium (EMBS) was initiated by Otto Kinne, Director of the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland, and held on Helgoland in the early autumn of 1966. The meeting was such a success that the EMBS has continued to be held annually ever since, moving around various locations. To date the EMBS has been organized in about 20 different European countries (Hummel & Hummel, 2016). The overall aim of the EMBS is to advance the science of Marine Biology within Europe. The EMBS provides a forum for the presentation of current marine biological research through a combination of oral and poster presentations, to encourage a wider interest in Marine Biology, an awareness of the need for the proper management of European seas and coasts, and the fostering of inter-European links and cooperation between researchers in Marine Biology. The scientific topics usually reflect the interest of the organizing institution, time series research in the case of the 50th EMBS.

Since the early part of the 20th Century the impact of a range of anthropogenic activities in our coastal seas has steadily increased. The effect of such activities is a major cause for concern but in the benthic environment few studies exist that date back more than a few decades. Hence understanding long term changes is a challenge. Within this study we utilized a historic benthic dataset and resurveyed an area west of Eddystone reef in the English Channel previously investigated 112 years ago. The aim of the present work was to describe the current benthic community structure and investigate potential differences between 1895 and 2007. For each of the four major phyla investigated (Polychaeta, Crustacea, Mollusca and Echinodermata), multivariate community analysis showed significant differences between the historic and contemporary surveys. Echinoderm diversity showed a clear reduction between 1895 and 2007. The sea urchins Echinus esculentus, Spatangus purpureus, and Psammechinus miliaris and large star-fish Marthasterias glacialis showed reductions in abundance, in some cases being entirely absent from the survey area in 2007. Polychaetes showed a shift from tubiculous species to small errant and predatory species such as Glycera, Nephtys, and Lumbrineris spp. Within the group Mollusca large species such as Pecten maximus and Laevicardium crassum decreased in abundance while small species increased. Crustaceans in 1895 were dominated by crab species which were present in similar abundances in 2007, but, the order Amphipoda appeared to show a significant increase. While some of the differences observed could stem from differences in methodologies between the surveys, in particular increases of small cryptic species, the loss of large conspicuous species was judged to be genuine. The study area is an important beam trawling and scallop dredging ground; the differences observed are concomitant with changes generally associated with disturbance from demersal fishing activities such as these.