Gradient responses of epilithic diatom communities in the Baltic Sea proper

Diatom communities and assemblages are widely used as indicators of ecological change in aquatic environments and for reconstructing palaeo-environments. Good calibration data sets, directly linking changes in diatom composition to environmental factors, are needed for building reliable gradient models with high indicative value. Such models have a broad applicability because most diatom species have cosmopolitan distributions. This paper presents community analyses of brackish-water diatoms living on submerged stones in four areas of the Baltic Sea proper along the Swedish coast. The communities on the stones were composed of epilithic, epiphytic, epipelic, epipsammic and occasionally some pelagic species. Altogether, 158 quantitative samples were taken at 41 sites between 23 April and 11 May, 1990, and the data set contained 300 diatom taxa belonging to 75 genera. Species data were analysed with principal components analysis (PCA) and environmental factors were fitted passively by multiple regression analysis on the ordination results. Differences in community composition could be explained by variation in salinity (which was correlated with N:P and Si:P ratios and the occurrence of macroalgae on the stones), nutrient concentrations and variation in exposure to wave action (which was correlated to the occurrence of soft bottoms around the stones, water temperature and the occurrence of sand grains and macroalgae on the stones). Separate analyses for small taxa (cell biovolume <1000 μm³), for large taxa (cell biovolume ≥1000 μm³) and for small and large diatom taxa together showed that diatoms of different size classes respond differently to environmental variation.