Year: 2024, Number: 1, Pages: 22-38
Taxonomic and trophic structure and quantitative development of polychaetes are examined in the marine coastal areas of the Karadag Nature Reserve in 2021–2022. 40 species belonging to 30 genera and 15 families are discovered. From 1938 to 2022, 75 species have been recorded in this area. According to the nutritional spectrum, polyphages are the most represented, phytophages are the least represented. The average number of polychaetes in 2021–2022 is 100 ± 53 ind./m2, the average biomass is 3.55 ± 0.023 g/m2; S. papillocercusthe prevails in the total abundance and biomass, 98 and 99%, respectively. The change in the species composition, abundance and biomass of marine polychaetes of the Karadag Nature Reserve, inhabiting hard bottom substrates (1984–2022) and soft soils (1938–2021), is considered. From 1984 to 2021, 29 species of polychaetes have been recorded on soft substrates, and only two species in 2021–2022: Namanereis littoralis and Saccocirrus papillocercus. In underwater rock assemblages, on the contrary, the largest number of species (38) has been found in 2021–2022, and the smallest (14) in 1938–1940 (a total of 65 species found during 1938–2022). A transformation of the species composition and trophic structure of polychaetes occurred in the coastal biotopes of soft and hard bottom substrates in the marine area of the Karadag Nature Reserve from 1938 to 2022, with a decrease in the number of phytophages, as well as a decrease in quantitative characteristics. Presumably, the de crease in the number and diversity of polychaete worms on soft substrates is associated with a decrease in the macrophyte algae biomass. The results obtained, supplemented by data on the structure of phytocenoses and characteristic of bottom substrates, can be used in environmental monitoring of protected water areas of the Black Sea.