Functional changes in benthic communities along a salinity gradient– a western Baltic case study.

Abstract: The study investigates the effect of the salinity gradient on the functional composition, functional diversity and functional redundancy of soft-bottom communities in the south-western Baltic Sea. For this purpose, three different areas were selected and compared using a biological trait approach. Functional diversity was calculated by using Rao's Quadratic Entropy as a measure and functional redundancy by the ratio between functional and species diversity. Despite a high variability due to different other occurring environmental gradients, a clear shift in functional composition was visible using the BTA approach. The changes were most distinct for the traits, longevity and larvae type if the analyses were based on the biomass of the species, whereas abundance-based analyses tend to show less clear results. Along the same gradient, functional diversity and functional redundancy tended to increase if biomass data were used in the analysis. On the other hand no changes could be observed in the functional diversity when the abundance of the species was used. The result of the BTA showed a trend from long-lived and highly specialised species towards short-lived ubiquitous species with decreasing salinity. However, dominance of ubiquitous species in brackish waters seems to buffer the functional loss. Therefore it can be followed that by gaining functional redundancy the robustness of the benthic ecosystem to environmental changes increases. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]