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Hydrobiological Journal

ISSN for PRINT: 0018-8166

Institutional price:	$1994.00
Issues per year:	6

Best Paper Award Selection - Editorial Board Site

2005, Volume41

117 pages

Issue price - $369.00

On the Role of the Planktonic Community in the Processes of Self-Purification of Novorossiysk Bay, the Black Sea

Zh. P. Selifonova
Murmansk Marine Biological Institute, Kolsk Scientific Center Russian Academy of Sciences, Murmansk, Russia

ABSTRACT

Efficiency of environmental self-purification in pelagic communities of Novorossiysk Bay of the Black Sea is evaluated as evidenced by energy flows during the seasons. A key role of the microbial food webs in the process of organic matter decomposition in this heavily polluted bay is confirmed. The importance of the allochthonous bacterial biomass, arriving into the bay with drainage waters from the land, as an additional source of particulate food in summer is demonstrated. The energy flows in the pelagic ecosystem of the bay during the summer period are distributed as follows: the largest its part passes via the bacterioplankton link (75%) and via the microzooplankton, mainly planktonic Protozoa (23%). The share of net zooplankton is small (2%).