The long-term variability of the age structure of cenopopulations of fucus bubble (Fucus vesiculosus L.) within the litoral of the Kola Bay under anthropogenic influence

Abstract

Recently, in order to assess the quality of water, hydrobiological indicators, in particular various biological characteristics of macroalgae, are widely used along with hydrochemical parameters. Brown alga Fucus vesiculosus due to its ecological plasticity and tolerance to a complex of natural and anthropogenic factors can serve as a model object when studying adaptive reactions of phytocenoses to adverse environmental conditions. The material for the work is the collections of algae during 1999, 2009 and 2019 years within the southern and middle tribes of the Kola Bay. The variability of the age structure of the Fucus vesiculosus on the littoral bay under anthropogenic press in different years has been considered in this work; moreover the environmental assessment of water quality has been also undertaken. Reference data have shown that the waters of the bay contained a wide range of pollutants, due to this an elevated concentrations of oil hydrocarbons and a number of metals have been observed for a long period. A study of the age structure of F. vesiculosus has shown that a long age series have been observed in the littoral cenopopulations of this species, plants of various age groups are presented, while the communities is based on young plants aged from 1 to 3 years. It has been found that the number of individuals of older age groups naturally decreases with increasing age. During the observing period, an increase in algae biomass and a subsequent decrease in its growth have been observed. The presented materials testify the stability of the brown alga F. vesiculosus under conditions of intensive industrial exploitation of the waters of the Kola Bay.