Original paper
Long-term marine floristic changes around Rovinj (Istrian coast, North Adriatic) estimated on the basis of historical data from Paul Kuckuck’s field diaries from the end of the 19th century
Munda, Ivka M.
Nova Hedwigia Band 71 Heft 1-2 (2000), p. 1 - 36
128 references
published: Sep 3, 2000
ArtNo. ESP050007101000, Price: 29.00 €
Abstract
The benthic marine algal flora in the vicinity of Rovinj (Istrian coast, North Adriatic) was investigated by several authors in the past and present centuries. The first thorough and extensive floristic studies were carried out by the German phycologist Paul Kuckuck during four visits to the area in 1894-1899. Kuckuck published only fragments of his observations and the bulk of information remained unpublished as hand-written diaries. Because the material collected by Kuckuck was destroyed during the war, the diaries represent the only comprehensive information on the algal flora of Rovinj at the end of the 19th century. These historical data have become relevant in order to evaluate the extent of long-term floristic changes in the area in comparison to the rapid and massive recent biotic alterations due to pollution and eutrophication. To make the historical data available they were extracted from Kuckuck’s diaries, scientific names were brought up-to-date and floristic lists were compiled containing data from Kuckuck and from later field surveys in the area in the periods 1967-1970 and 1978-1983. A floristic impoverishment was found from the end of the last century to the sixties within all algal groups. It was most pronounced for the red and least for the green algae. More recent changes between the sixties and seventies were even more profound, involving a further floristic impoverishment and also the deterioration of fucoid and red algal populations.
Keywords
algal lists • historical data • Rovinj • North Adriatic • Paul Kuckuck’s diaries • floristic changes