Benthic Foraminiferal Assemblages And Their Response To Anthropogenic Activities In Recent 100 Years: A Case Study From Huludao And Yingkou Nearshore, Liaodong Bay

Since the industrial revolution, the marine environmental pollution has become an important research topic. The marine ecological environment influenced by the environmental pollution is a significant research direction of blue ocean economy. With a huge population density, high species diversity and environmental sensitivity, foraminifera can be used as an effective biological indicator of marine environment monitoring in recent decades.Huludao, Liaodong Bay is a heavily contaminated area. In China, Huludao is the base of zinc smelting and chlor-alkali industry, also the marine aquaculture is an important domain along the coast. Industrial emissions of heavy metals, organic pollution due to aquaculture, nutrient salts enrichment, organic agriculture, and urban Sewage etc. constituted the major sources of pollution in this region. So it is an ideal area to the research of marine ecological environment due to human activities. This paper select Yingkou and Bayuquan coastal area of Liaodong Bay as research area , as well as comparative study. This research collect 56surface samples and 5 core samples (includes 156 samples), in order to find out the relationship between foraminifera and anthropogenic impacts in the marine sediments. 210Pb age-dating is used to build time scale, and the heavy metal are analyzed. The research shows that:1. Near-shore water species are the main foraminifera assemblages. the variety of dominant assemblages distribution are not obvious in surface samples through study areas, this is coincident with modern land surface sea sedimentary environment. The characteristics and variety of dominant assemblages are highly influenced by anthropogenic activities. ?2. Similar to the foraminifera in the surface sediments, the assemblages of foraminifera in core samples have minor changes. It reveals the stable environment of Bohai Bay. The assemblage characteristics and dominance of foraminifera have an indication to the worsening pollution of marine environment.3. The content of heavy metals in sediments appears an increase trend, Cu, Zn, Pb show a conspicuous increase, and controlled by terrigenous pollution. The content change of Cu, Zn, Pb are related to dominance and species of foraminifera. Elphidium magellanicum and Protelphidium tuberculatum can resist pollution, while Buccella frigida and Cribrononion subincertum are sensitive to the polluted environment.4. Morphological deformities can be found in the research area of Huludao and Yingkou, foraminiferal Abnormality Index (FAI) is highly influenced by anthropogenic activities. Foraminiferal morphological deformities from core samples display an ascend trend before 1960, and obviously since 1960. The ascend show a remarkable trend from 1980. This trend reveals the worsening marine pollution of Liaodong Bay since 1960.