Mayya Gogina

• Dr. rer. nat.
• PostDoc Position at Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research

Below the water column depths, marine sediments harbor a vibrant tapestry of life that underpins a variety of ecological balances. From the tiniest microbes to complex multicellular organisms, benthic communities play pivotal roles in nutrient cycling, energy flow, and habitat formation. Understanding these intricate ecosystems is paramount, especi...

Quantifying the impact of lower trophic level species abundance on higher trophic level predators (and vice versa) is critical for understanding marine ecosystem dynamics and for implementing ecosystem-based management. Trophic ecosystem models generally predict a tight coupling between prey and fish predators, such that higher abundance of lower t...

The Benthos Ecology Working Group (BEWG) aims to study, describe and update on all aspects relevant to the ecology, functioning and interactions of marine benthic organisms across the Northeastern Atlantic, either living in or within the sediment, either animals or plants, either macro, meio or epibenthic, either littoral and sublittoral up to the...

Simple Summary This study illustrates a baseline biodiversity snapshot of macrofauna inhabiting the seafloor in German marine protected areas (MPAs) if the North and Baltic Seas in 2020–2022, before the full closure for bottom-contact fishing. While the closure is now in place in some MPAs, it is still planned for the near future in others. The ana...

Competition is challenging to quantify in natural systems and inference is often made on indirect patterns of potential competition, such as trends in population trajectories and overlap in spatiotemporal distribution and resource use. However, these indicators are not direct measures of fitness, nor do they say if the contested resource is limited...

Trawl-fishing is broadly considered to be one of the most destructive anthropogenic activities toward benthic ecosystems. In this study, we examine the effects of bottom-contact fishing by otter trawls on the geochemistry and macrofauna in sandy silt sediment in an area of the Baltic Sea where clear spatial patterns in trawling activity were previo...

Improving the conservation status and the management of Red List species requires knowledge on the biology and distribution of the organisms as well as an evaluation of the appropriateness of management measures. This study provides information on the trophic ecology and seasonal abundances of two Red List fish species from the Western Baltic Sea,...

Simple Summary An increasing number of different habitats leads to an increasing number of species and has been considered a key driver for biodiversity. However, there is no common understanding on how to measure habitat diversity. In this study, we tested a newly proposed measure of substrate heterogeneity by classifying changes on the seafloor w...

An organism’s body condition describes its mass given its length and is often positively associated with fitness. The condition of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the Baltic Sea has declined dramatically since the early 1990s, possibly due to increased competition for food and hypoxia. However, the effects of biotic and abiotic variables on body con...

Mapping the structure of benthic macrofauna communities is essential for assessing and monitoring the state of the seafloor habitats. The presence and dominance of species and functional traits they exhibit alter the biotic and abiotic settings and provide a variety of ecosystem services. Species distribution influence biogeochemical fluxes, transp...

The short term impacts of fishing pressure were compared with the variability induced by environmental drivers on quantitative benthic community impact indicators. The different pressures were evaluated through comparative multifactor statistical analyses of their effects on macrofauna indicators in a Baltic Sea area with high natural disturbance....

The dynamics of marine systems at decadal scales are notoriously hard to predict—hence references to this timescale as the “grey zone” for ocean prediction. Nevertheless, decadal-scale prediction is a rapidly developing field with an increasing number of applications to help guide ocean stewardship and sustainable use of marine environments. Such p...

This study investigated the seasonality of acoustic backscatter intensities, exploring three habitats in the southwestern Baltic Sea: 1) a mussel-covered reef, 2) coarse sand and gravel, and 3) seagrass meadows. Backscatter information of different, partly calibrated frequencies (200, 400, 550, and 700 kHz) was collected in three seasons (May, Augu...

Simple Summary The sediments on the seafloor are inhabited by multiple macroscopic organisms such as shells and worms, which, among other things, influence the biogeochemical cycling by flushing the near-bottom water through their gangways. This is called bioirrigation, one of key processes in the functioning of marine sediments. The density of ani...

The rare in the German North and Baltic Sea waters and strictly protected sea star Crossaster papposus was found in 2019 and 2021 during monitoring activities in a marine protected area. This unique observation was achieved by using towed camera platform imagery along a transect in the Fehmarn Belt, which allows monitoring of a much larger area of...

The rare in the German North and Baltic Sea waters and strictly protected sea star Crossaster papposus was found in 2019 and 2021 during monitoring activities in a marine protected area. This unique observation was achieved by using towed camera platform imagery along a transect in the Fehmarn Belt, which allows monitoring of a much larger area of...

An organism's body condition describes its mass given its length and is often positively associated with fitness. The condition of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the Baltic Sea has declined dramatically since the early 1990s, possibly due to increased competition, food limitation, and hypoxia. However, the effect of biotic and abiotic variables on...

The availability of standardised biomass data is essential for studying population dynamics, energy flows, fisheries and food web interactions. To make the estimates of biomass consistent, weight-to-weight conversion factors are often used, for example to translate more widely available measurements of wet weights into required dry weights and ash-...

The presented 3D seismic system operates three transducers (130 kHz) from a stationary lander and allows non-destructive imaging of small-scale objects within the top decimeters of silty sediments, covering a surface area of 0.2 m². In laboratory experiments, samples such as shells, stones, and gummy worms of varied sizes (down to approx. 1 cm diam...

Estimates of biomass often involve the use of weight-to-weight conversion factors for rapid assessment of dry-weights based metrics from more widely available measurements of wet weights. Availability of standardized biomass data is essential amid research on population dynamics, energy flow, fishery and food web interactions. However, for many spe...

Bottom trawl fishing is a controversial activity. It yields about a quarter of the world's wild seafood, but also has impacts on the marine environment. Recent advances have quantified and improved understanding of large‐scale impacts of trawling on the seabed. However, such information needs to be coupled with distributions of benthic invertebrate...

Species in the brackish and estuarine ecosystems will experience multiple changes in hydrographic variables due to ongoing climate change and nutrient loads. Here, we investigate how a glacial relict species (Saduria entomon), having relatively cold, low salinity biogeographic origin, could be affected by the combined scenarios of climate change an...

Bioturbation is one of the key mediators of biogeochemical processes in benthic habitats that can have a high contribution to seafloor functioning and benthic pelagic coupling in coastal waters. Previous studies on bio-turbation were limited to point locations and extrapolations in single regions, but have not accounted for regional differences und...

Knowledge of spatial patterns in subtidal hard substrate assemblages is necessary for the development of effective marine management strategies. However, patterns are intrinsically scale-dependent, and little is known about the relative importance of vertical and horizontal position changes across scales. In the southwestern Baltic Sea, major physi...

The study explores the fine scale spatial and temporal distribution of the entire demersal fish and flatfish assemblages in a brackish ecosystem with a special focus on the abiotic and biotic drivers influencing the abundance of the three commercially and ecologically important flatfish species, namely flounder (Platichthys flesus), plaice (Pleuron...

1. In this study, non-destructive seafloor imaging techniques were employed to assess the benthic community structure of a recently discovered boulder reef within the central Arkona Basin of the Baltic Sea. 2. Data indicate that geographical isolation, water column stratification and temporary oxygen deficiency create an exceptional reef habitat i...

During several cruises in the southern Baltic Sea conducted in different seasons from 2014 to 2016, sediment cores were collected for the investigation of pore-water biogeochemistry and associated nutrient fluxes across the sediment-water interface. Six stations were positioned along a salinity gradient (ranging from 22 to 8) and covered various se...

Coastal marine sediments are a hotspot of organic matter degradation. Mineralization products of early diagenetic processes accumulate in the pore waters of the sediment, are subject of biological uptake and secondary biogeochemical processes and are released back into the water column via advective and diffusive fluxes across the sediment-water in...

Bioirrigation: the animal-induced exchange of solutes between pore water and overlying water - is a key process in sediments with profound implications for biogeochemical processes such as nutrient cycling and organic matter regeneration at the sediment water interface. There is an urgent need to understand how a changing environment will affect th...

Quantitative sampling of sessile assemblages on temperate subtidal rocky reefs is expensive and severely time-limited by logistics. However, knowledge about distribution patterns of critical and endangered species and habitats at different spatial scales is needed for effective marine management strategies. To gain information of sessile community...

Seven representative sites in the shallow coastal area of the southern Baltic Sea, ranging from permeable sands to fi ne grained muds, were investigated on a seasonal basis for their key mineralization processes as well as their solid phase and pore water composition. The sands showed about one order of magnitude lower organic carbon contents compa...

During three cruises to the Bay of Gdansk, Baltic Sea, the fauna, porewater and bottom water were sampled at stations parallel to the shore and along a transect offshore. Diffusive porewater fluxes were calculated and related to the total net fluxes (TNF) of nutrients. The TNF comprise all nutrients that reach the bottom water from the sediment inc...

Regional models help to significantly improve our understanding of the global and regional cycles of, for example, carbon and nutrients. However, regional models often poorly resolve estuarine dynamics and are rather controlled by open boundary conditions. To investigate ecosystem processes in the south-eastern North Sea and Elbe estuary while avoi...

Anthropogenic pressure on marine coastal ecosystems is increasing and benthic habitats are particularly affected. Effective marine resource management is needed which rely largely on the knowledge of the distribution of critical species and habitats. Rocky reefs are such important habitats, hosting diverse macrobenthic assemblages, which in turn su...

Anthropogenic pressure on marine coastal ecosystems is increasing and benthic habitats are particularly affected. Effective marine resource management is needed which rely largely on the knowledge of the distribution of critical species and habitats. Rocky reefs are such important habitats, hosting diverse macrobenthic assemblages, which in turn su...

Hard-bottom habitats with complex topography and fragile epibenthic communities are still not adequately considered in benthic monitoring programs, despite their potential ecological importance. While indicators of ecosystem health are defined by major EU directives, methods commonly used to measure them are deficient in quantification of biota on...

Biological long-term data series in marine habitats are often used to identify anthropogenic impacts on the environment or climate induced regime shifts. However, particularly in transitional waters, environmental properties like water mass dynamics, salinity variability and the occurrence of oxygen minima not necessarily caused by either human act...

List of abiotic variables. (XLSX)

Supplementary data. (XLSX)

Derivative indices used. (DOCX)

Aquatic community structure and dynamics are generally controlled by a variety of biological and physical factors. Among these factors in marine ecosystems, salinity is known to have a significant effect on species occurrence and composition. In this study, we investigated the large-scale distribution and abundance of encrusting fauna along a salin...

This study provides an inventory of the recent benthicmacrofaunal communities in the entire Baltic Sea. The analyses of soft-bottom benthic invertebrate community data based on over 7000 locations in the Baltic Sea suggested the existence of 10major communities based on species abundances and 17 communities based on species biomasses, respectively....

This study provides an inventory of the recent benthicmacrofaunal communities in the entire Baltic Sea. The analyses of soft-bottom benthic invertebrate community data based on over 7000 locations in the Baltic Sea suggested the existence of 10major communities based on species abundances and 17 communities based on species biomasses, respectively....

Marine benthic ecosystems are difficult to monitor and assess, which is in contrast to modern ecosystem-based management requiring detailed information at all important ecological and anthropogenic impact levels. Ecosystem management needs to ensure a sustainable exploitation of marine resources as well as the protection of sensitive habitats, taki...

Marine benthic ecosystems are difficult to monitor and assess, which is in contrast to modern ecosystem-based management requiring detailed information at all important ecological and anthropogenic impact levels. Ecosystem management needs to ensure a sustainable exploitation of marine resources as well as the protection of sensitive habitats, taki...

This study attempts to model the probability of occurrence of some characteristic macro-invertebrate species of the Baltic Sea from different functional groups (i.e. grazers, deposit and suspension feeders, and predators) in response to major environmental forcing factors (salinity, water depth and seabed substrate type). Analyses were based on the...

The detailed analysis of patterns of benthic community distribution related to selected environmental parameters provides a basis for predictive modelling of species distribution. Species-specific models predicting the probability of occurrence relative to environmental and sedimentological characteristics were developed in this study for 29 macrof...

In this study we relate patterns in the spatial distribution of macrofaunal communities to patterns in near-bottom environmental parameters, analysing the data observed in a limited area in the western Baltic Sea. The data used represents 208 stations, sampled during the years 2000 to 2007 simultaneously for benthic macrofauna, associated sediment...

The brackish water environment of the Baltic Sea is dominated by a strong gradient of salinity and along with salinity the benthic diversity decreases – salinity is regarded as the master factor regulating benthic diversity in brackish habitats. In t his scheme, consistently small patches of comparatively higher or lower benthic diversity do emerge...

Coastline development is a function of eustasy and isostasy. On a regional scale, the precision of models based on these two components is sufficient for the investigation of coastline scenarios. However, on a local scale sediment dynamic is responsible for the evolution of coastal structures that alter the coastline in detail considerably. The Dar...

The thesis covers the analysis of the total runoff of dissolved substances from the European part of Russia into the Arctic Seas (the White and the Barents Seas). An estimate includes the runoff with waters of the largest rivers, particularly Onega, Northern Dvina River, Mezen and Pechora, but also account for the runoff from the territories locate...