Subproject 1: Holocene science and culture history

The main objective of this interdisciplinary project is the comparison between recent data on the structure and function of eulitoral macrofaunal communities with former investigations carried out by LINKE (1939) in the 1930s and MICHAELIS (1986) in the 1970s or in the subtidal by DÖRJES et al. (1969; 1970) in the 1970s to detect changes in the species composition as well as in the spatial distribution of species and communities due to natural or anthropogenic impacts. Additionally, the structure and distribution of meiofaunal communities as well as sediment composition and chemical components such as inorganic and organic pollutants (see Chemistry) are studied on the same spatial scale to elucidate the relationships between the different components in the benthic system. Recent data and historical data will be integrated in the interdisciplinary Data Warehouse.