Holocene records of an irregular echinoid unveil the 19<sup>th</sup> century population decline in the northern Adriatic Sea
- Author(s)
- Bettina Bachmann, Rafal Nawrot, Adam Tomašových, Martin Zuschin
- Abstract
The consequences of historical and long-term human impacts on non commercial marine benthic species are poorly known due to temporally limited monitoring data. Skeletal remains preserved in sediment cores provide a historical archive for reconstructing ecological baselines prior to anthropogenic impacts and can document population fluctuations not captured by recent ecological surveys. Here, we trace a unique Holocene record of the echinoid Echinocyamus pusillus from sediment cores and grab samples in the northern Adriatic Sea, a region affected by human disturbances over millennia. The exceptional preservation of the small luminacean species archives long-term persistence of this species over the past ~11,000 years, providing a baseline for understanding long-term dynamics of echinoid populations. The radiocarbon age-dating of multiple specimens from the surface sediment layer reveals high abundance of E. pusillus tests from the 18th and early 19th century but an absence of individuals that died within the last ~100 years. This pattern suggests a dramatic decline in test production and thus population densities since the late 19th century, likely linked to intensified siltation, trawling-induced sediment disturbance, eutrophication, and hypoxia in the northern Adriatic Sea. Our results highlight the vulnerability of non-commercial or poorly-studied benthic species to human-driven habitat degradation, which is often difficult to assess without palaeoecological data due to historical legacy of many human impacts.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Palaeontology
- External organisation(s)
- Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS)
- Journal
- Marine Ecology Progress Series
- ISSN
- 0171-8630
- Publication date
- 12-2025
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 105118 Palaeontology
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/a9e8e60f-fd8b-450a-ada7-46103e633cd6