The northwestern shelf of the Black Sea has been affected by eutrophication and bottom hypoxia since the sixties. Consequently, the macrozoobenthos has suffered a well-established decline in biodiversity. However, the nature of the current benthic communities remains questionable. From 1995 to 2017, we compiled species and abiotic data for 138 sites over the shelf. Through an appropriate multivariate analytical approach, we identified benthic community changes solely due to organic pollution variations. Our results show signs of recovery with an increase in biodiversity and proportion of species vulnerable to organic enrichment. These changes were related to a decrease in riverine loads and subsequent eutrophication. However, some long-lived species typical of the area still did not exhibit noticeable recovery, which suggests that either the recovery process has not yet been achieved or some environmental conditions are still not met to warrant a sea floor ecosystem state substantially healthy.

中文翻译：

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黑海西北陆架大型底栖动物部分恢复


黑海西北陆架自六十年代以来一直受到富营养化和海底缺氧的影响。因此，大型底栖动物的生物多样性明显下降。然而，目前海底群落的性质仍然值得怀疑。从 1995 年到 2017 年，我们收集了大陆架 138 个地点的物种和非生物数据。通过适当的多变量分析方法，我们确定了仅由于有机污染变化而引起的底栖群落变化。我们的结果显示出随着生物多样性和易受有机富集影响的物种比例的增加而恢复的迹象。这些变化与河流负荷的减少和随后的富营养化有关。然而，该地区一些典型的长寿物种仍然没有表现出明显的恢复，这表明要么尚未实现恢复过程，要么某些环境条件仍然不满足保证海底生态系统状态基本健康的条件。