Functional changes in benthic communities along a salinity gradient- a western Baltic case study

The result of the BTA showed a trend from long-lived and highly specialised species towards short-lived ubiquitous species with decreasing salinity. However, dominance of ubiquitous species in brackish waters seems to buffer the functional loss. Therefore it can be followed that by gaining functional redundancy the robustness of the benthic ecosystem to environmental changes increases.