That was not reflected in our data; during winter compound screening assay and spring the daily mortality rate were the lowest, while increasing from spring to summer (about 0.80). However this was most likely caused by relatively low abundance of this species, meaning that effect of predation was negligible, and other processes like advective transport were more visible. Although the data obtained from this study are too scarce to draw any long-term conclusions, they seem to fit to the trends observed in other parts of the

Baltic Sea, mostly increase in standing stocks of Acartia spp. and T. longicornis and decrease of Pseudocalanus sp. decline ( Dippner et al., 2000, Möllmann and Köster, 2002, Möllmann et al., 2000, Möllmann et al., 2005 and Renz et al., 2007). The same effect was also observed in production rates of those species, especially Pseudocalanus sp. which had production rates observed in bay that were several times lower than that observed in Central Baltic ( Möllmann and Köster, 2002 and Renz et al., 2007). Results obtained in this investigation show higher mortality of selleck chemicals major copepod taxa than it was observed in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. As the growing trend in the Gulf of Gdańsk seems to be reflecting the situation in other parts of Baltic Sea this could be caused by increased predation of clupeid fish on zooplankton, and it is similar to the situation observed at the beginning of 1990s. This research

was carried out with the support of a grant from the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research (No. NN306 353239). “
“Intensification of human activities regarding new technologies, especially inventing new substances, progress in medicine and pharmaceutical industry and the extension

of needs in progressing civilization in general, results in increasing anthropogenic pressure on the natural environment. The release of large amounts of chemical substances to the environment poses currently one of the serious Isoconazole problems as neither their effects nor their distribution among the environment components is well recognized. Therefore, the assessment of the environmental status became the key issue at present in order to support appropriate decisions on measures aiming at reduction of the pressures and restoration of the undisturbed functioning of the ecosystem. The HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (HELCOM, 2007) is an example of such a voluntary initiative of countries wishing to have back a healthy sea, and the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (Anon., 2000) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) (Anon., 2008) are the examples of strong legal actions that bind countries to undertake measures aiming at protection of the marine environment. Nonetheless, the first stage in any counter-measure is the appropriate assessment of the current environmental status and comparison with certain reference status assumed as the desired one.