The project focuses on the recent and long-term foraminiferal response to environmental changes due to natural climatic and hydrographic variability and anthropogenic impact. We have monitored living benthic foraminiferal assemblages in the Kiel Bight (SW Baltic Sea) in 2005 - 2007 under moderate pollution from shipyards, harbours and intensive traffic. First results showed that the dominant environmental forcing of benthic foraminifera is the food supply in Kiel fjord and the salinity in Flensburg Fjord. A comparison with previous data from the 1930s and 1960s revealed apparent changes in species composition and population densities during the past decades. These changes and a significant increase of test abnormality frequencies indicates enforced environmental stress. In order to better constrain the reasons, boundary conditions, and baselines for such alterations in foraminiferal communities, surface sediment samples and short sediment cores are studied for tracing the historical environmental changes.