Phytoplankton communities as indicators of ecological change in the anthropogenically impacted Mar Piccolo in Taranto (Ionian Sea).

The preliminary results on phytoplankton community dynamics obtained by constructing a system based simulation model are here presented. This constitutes a component in a larger ecological model, which has been developed under the FP6 Integrated Project SPICOSA (Science and Policy Integration for Coastal Assessment). This model is aimed to quantify the main forcing due to human activities and environmental factors acting on the Mar Piccolo coastal system (Taranto, Italy) that is changing its response to these forcing. The succession of phytoplankton groups provides a useful indicator of system response to human perturbations, a calibration parameter for the species-specific growth, an indicator of trophic changes, and a control on the growth of mussels reared in Mar Piccolo.