Scenario simulations of future salinity and ecological consequences in the Baltic Sea and adjacent North Sea areas–implications for environmental monitoring

Abstract

HighlightsWe modelled the surface water salinity in the Baltic from the 1960s to 2100.We studied possible changes in distribution areas of predominant plant, invertebrate and fish species.The results suggest a critical shift in the salinity range 5–7, which is a bottleneck for both marine and freshwater species distribution and diversity.This foreseen salinity change is likely to have large impacts on marine ecology, it́s monitoring, modelling as well as fisheries.

100 years of atmospheric and marine observations at the Finnish Utö Island in the Baltic Sea

“…We see increase until 1990 and after that a decrease until the end of our visual ( We also looked at wind time series (period 1959-2016) and found no significant changes in wind direction nor wind speed, in line with a recent study for the period 1979(Laapas and Venäläinen, 2017. However, because the wind observations are very sensitive to inhomogeneities in methods and location (Pryor et al, 2009;Wan et al, 2010;Feser et al, 2015;Laapas and Venäläinen, 2017), more analyses for observations done prior to 1959 are needed before further use of this part of the dataset. Figure 6 shows the monthly median seawater temperatures, salinities and densities in the Utö deep during the period 1911-2016.…”

“…An interesting study utilizing the time series presented in this paper together with the new observations will be to use the new cabled bottom profiler together with an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) (Figs. A1 and A2) to study the occasional inflows of saline bottom water which may have significant impacts on the Archipelago Sea ecosystem (Vuorinen et al, 2015). Another planned study combining hydrographic observations with biogeochemistry and climate change is to use the profiler together with the flow-through system to analyze the thickness of biologically active layer and its connection to the marine carbon cycle.…”

Platichthys solemdali sp. nov. (Actinopterygii, Pleuronectiformes): A New Flounder Species From the Baltic Sea

“…In the long term, eutrophication is deoxygenating the Baltic Sea (Carstensen et al, 2014) and climate change is decreasing salinity via increased freshwater runoff (Vuorinen et al, 2015). The latter will likely result in range contractions for many marine species in the Baltic Sea (MacKenzie et al, 2007;Vuorinen et al, 2015). Therefore, the contemporary distribution of the two flounder species in the Baltic Sea is likely to be non-stationary, subject to short-and long-term environmental changes driven by natural and anthropogenic factors.…”

“…Short term fluctuations are largely due to the occurrence of large inflows or oxygen rich, high salinity waters from the North Sea, and due to stagnation periods in which salinity and oxygen concentrations decrease (Neumann et al, 2017). In the long term, eutrophication is deoxygenating the Baltic Sea (Carstensen et al, 2014) and climate change is decreasing salinity via increased freshwater runoff (Vuorinen et al, 2015). The latter will likely result in range contractions for many marine species in the Baltic Sea (MacKenzie et al, 2007;Vuorinen et al, 2015).…”

Small details of big importance: Carbon mass determination in the invasive cladoceran Cercopagis pengoi (Ostroumov, 1891) by the high temperature combustion method

“…This impact jointly with ecosystem vulnerability to invasions, food web structure and biodiversity are closely interrelated and tightly linked with the on-going environmental alterations (Vuorinen et al 2015, Holopainen et al 2016. New experimentally derived knowledge on carbon mass of the alien fishhook water flea C. pengoi will contribute to future development of methods for assessment of the ecosystem impacts of non-indigenous species and refining the invasibility criteria for successful species coexistence in the changing environment which might significantly enhance predictive ecology.…”