Along this salinity gradient, the basin of the Gulf of Riga has one of the lowest macrovegetation species diversities. The Gulf of Riga has a surface area of 17913 km2, a volume of 406 km3, a maximum depth of 52 m and an average depth of 23 m. The average salinity in the gulf is 5.6. Outside the straits, the currents in the practically tideless Selleck MEK inhibitor Estonian coastal sea are meteorologically driven and generally neither persistent nor strong (Suursaar et al.

2012). Because of the semienclosed configuration of the study area and the presence of some shallow bays exposed to the direction of the strongest expected storm winds, the sea level variability range is up to 4 m in Pärnu Bay and about 3 m elsewhere in the gulf (Jaagus & Suursaar 2013). As a result of the small area of the gulf (140 × 150 km2), significant wave heights (Hs) may reach

4 m when a storm wind blows from the direction of the longest fetch for a particular location (Suursaar et al. 2012). Long, relatively calm periods are interspersed with occasional wind and wave storms without a noteworthy swell-component. In general, the swash climate associated with low-energy dissipative beaches (with wide surf zones and flat beach profiles) supports an abundant coastal life (Lastra et al. selleck chemical 2006). As the beach type changes towards reflective conditions with short surf zones, coarse bottom substrates and steep slopes, the increasingly inhospitable swash climate gradually excludes sensitive species. The specific study locations at Kõiguste (58°22′N, 22°59′E), Sõmeri (58°21′N, 23°44′E) and Orajõe (57°57′N, 24°23′E; Figure 1) are predominantly low-energy beaches with low-lying hypsometric curves. The bottom substrate varies between sandy and morainic (Martin 1999). According to earlier studies, the three areas showed slightly different patterns of phytobenthic communities. While the Kõiguste area was characterised by high coverage and biomass, the other areas had a lower coverage and biomass of benthic vegetation (Martin 2000). According to previous studies, the most frequent

species were filamentous algae such as Ceramium tenuicorne (Kützing) Waern, Polysiphonia fucoides (Hudson) Greville, Pilayella Teicoplanin littoralis (Linnaeus) Kjellman and Battersia arctica (Harvey) Draisma, Prud’homme & H. Kawai in the Gulf of Riga ( Martin 1999). Recently, the filamentous red alga P. fucoides occurred most frequently and with high coverage in all the areas studied ( Kersen 2012). Sampling of the seabed phytobenthic community was carried out in three areas (Kõiguste, Sõmeri and Orajõe) in the northern Gulf of Riga (Figure 1) in May, July and September 2011. In each area, macrophyta were observed along three parallel transects placed perpendicularly to the shoreline with a distance of 500 m between the transects. The length of the transect was 2–4 km depending on the area. The depth intervals of the sampling sites along the transects were 1–1.5 m.