ABSTRACT
Almost five decades until 1992 all results of environmental studies were highly classified. Therefore, the complex ecosystem studies in the vicinity of Sillamäe, including the survey of local coastal fish communities, have a short history. Concerning fish, the main attention in earlier studies was paid to the examination of reproduction conditions of the Baltic herring as the most important commercial fish in the area (Palm 1985, Raid 1985). The intensity of those studies increased in the beginning of 2000s (Orviku et al. 2008, HELCOM 2006 & 2010, Tõnisson et al. 2014) when the planning and building of new deep-water port started. However the studies of the marine ecosystem in SilPort area are still in their early stage.
