The aim of this study was to evaluate the amount of organic macrodetritus deposited on the sandy shores of the southern Baltic, and to determine the type of washout material and their chemical composition (carbon and nitrogen). Over 900 samples of macrodetritus (particles retained on a 0.5 mm sieve) were collected from seven sampling locations along a 120 km stretch of coastline in Poland at monthly intervals in 2002. Analysis of the C and N content of several categories of detritus supplied information about seasonal changes in and the ageing of algal debris, and indicated that the amount of carrion is constant; the latter is apparently always metabolised very rapidly. The annual deposition of macroalgal detritus on this coast was estimated at 15 000 tonnes fresh weight, that is around 75% of the primary production of filamentous macroalgae in Puck Bay. In comparison with the amounts of kelp deposited on sandy beaches in South Africa (Griffiths & Stenton-Dozey 1981), the massive seaweed washouts on Mediterranean beaches (Morand & Briand 1996), or the deposition of algal mats in the northern Baltic (Norkko & Bonsdorff 1996a), the quantities of macrodetritus on the shore in the study area are average, even allowing for the fact that the Baltic Sea is highly eutrophic (HELCOM 2005).
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