In general, sediment properties such as grain size and organic matter content are known to affect their distribution.

These organisms also exploit different sediment depths, and it is generally thought that this is driven by species competition for food and the species burrowing behaviour. However, physical disturbance of surface sediments from anthropogenic activities such as bottom trawling has the potential to affect organisms' depth distribution.

This project will test that theory using fauna and sediment data from the southern Baltic.

The project will involve the identification of macrofauna samples collected in the southern Baltic in June 2023 and potentially the analysis of sediment properties. This will be analysed together with similar data already collected in 2019 and 2020.

Contact

For more information please contact:

Professor Clare Bradshaw
clare.bradshaw@su.se