Baltic photic or aphotic shell gravel characterized by mixed infaunal macrocommunity in fine sand-like shell fragmentsThe HELCOM Red List of Baltic Sea underwater biotopes, habitats and biotope complexes (2013) is an updated and improved version of the Red List assessment of marine and coastal biotopes and biotope complexes published in 1998. The classification of the report follows the proposed International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria and assessment principals but with some modifications for the Baltic Sea.Altogether, the HELCOM Underwater Biotope and habitat classification (HELCOM HUB) includes 209 biotopes of which 59 were red-listed. Many of the red-listed biotopes are located in deep areas of the Baltic Sea due to oxygen-free nature as well as in the southwestern Baltic Sea due to the salinity restricted distribution of species in certain biotope. The HELCOM assessment relies heavily on expert judgment and inference, and the questionnaire data represents the estimated presence-absence data not in-situ measured data. This must be taken in account when observing the map presentation. The biotopes are shown on the map using the EEA 100 km grid. This dataset displays estimated presence of AA.E3Yand AB.E3Yaccording to HELCOM RED LIST assessment experts:The distribution of sand-like shell gravel bottoms in the Baltic Sea is unknown, only few small patches have been recorded from German waters. The distribution map indicates the area in the 100 x 100 km grid where biotopes are known to occur, the biotopes may occur in other areas of high salinity but currently no other occurrences are known.(Data (expert judgements) collected in HELCOM RED LIST project, released in May 2013) |
AA.E3Y and AB.E3Y (NT) |