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Abstract: The sea surface temperature (SST) in loggerhead turtle breeding areas affects the species reproductive biology. Less is known about the effects of changes in SST in the species foraging grounds. We used nesting data for the Mediterranean loggerhead turtle population breeding on the Greek island of Zakynthos to study the effect of SST in the population foraging grounds upon the initiation of nesting and the number of clutches laid. We found that the climatic conditions (SST) in the foraging grounds affected the population nesting phenology in the short term (i.e. within the same year); warmer years triggered an earlier onset of nesting. However, the effect of foraging grounds SST upon nesting is comparatively less important than the local conditions at the nesting ground. Although nesting phenology seems to depend on current''s year foraging grounds SST the number of nests in our study rookery were negatively correlated with SSTs recorded 2 years prior nesting, with higher SST leading to fewer nests. From this point of view, climate change at the foraging grounds may influence the reproductive phenology of loggerheads. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Rapid anthropogenic climate change is driving threatened biodiversity one step closer to extinction. Effects on native biodiversity are determined by an interplay between species' exposure to climate change and their specific ecological and life-history characteristics that render them even more susceptible. Impacts on biodiversity have already been reported, however, a systematic risk evaluation of threatened marine populations is lacking. Here, we employ a trait-based approach to assess the risk of 90 threatened marine Mediterranean species to climate change, combining species' exposure to increased sea temperature and intrinsic vulnerability. One-quarter of the threatened marine biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea is predicted to be under elevated levels of climate risk, with various traits identified as key vulnerability traits. High-risk taxa including sea turtles, marine mammals, Anthozoa and Chondrichthyes are highlighted. Climate risk, vulnerability and exposure hotspots are distributed along the Western Mediterranean, Alboran, Aegean, and Adriatic Seas. At each Mediterranean marine ecoregion, 21%-31% of their threatened species have high climate risk. All Mediterranean marine protected areas host threatened species with high risk to climate change, with 90% having a minimum of 4 up to 19 species of high climate risk, making the objective of a climate-smart conservation strategy a crucial task for immediate planning and action. Our findings aspire to offer new insights for systematic, spatially strategic planning and prioritization of vulnerable marine life in the face of accelerating climate change., (© 2022 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Given the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss, the need to prioritize marine areas for protection represents a major conservation challenge. The three-dimensionality of marine life and ecosystems is an inherent element of complexity for setting spatial conservation plans. Yet, the confidence of any recommendation largely depends on shifting climate, which triggers a global redistribution of biodiversity, suggesting the inclusion of time as a fourth dimension. Here, we developed a depth-specific prioritization analysis to inform the design of protected areas, further including metrics of climate-driven changes in the ocean. Climate change was captured in this analysis by considering the projected future distribution of >2000 benthic and pelagic species inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea, combined with climatic stability and heterogeneity metrics of the seascape. We identified important areas based on both biological and climatic criteria, where conservation focus should be given in priority when designing a three-dimensional, climate-smart protected area network. We detected spatially concise, conservation priority areas, distributed around the basin, that protected marine areas almost equally across all depth zones. Our approach highlights the importance of deep sea zones as priority areas to meet conservation targets for future marine biodiversity, while suggesting that spatial prioritization schemes, that focus on a static two-dimensional distribution of biodiversity data, might fail to englobe both the vertical properties of species distributions and the fine and larger-scale impacts associated with climate change., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)