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Drastic effects of Climate Change on Mediterranean marine forests
- Source :
- Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC, instname
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- PeerJ, 2018.
-
Abstract
- Macroalgal forests have gone missing from most temperate rocky shores during the last decades, triggering an important biodiversity loss. Cystoseira species are some of the main marine habitat-forming species on shallow water Mediterranean rocky bottoms and follow the same tendency, mainly related to habitat destruction and pollution. However, here we suggest that anormal positive thermal events may contribute to this widespread Cystoseira decline. Monitoring thorough natural populations showed a drastic decline on a natural and relict C. crinita population in terms of density and structure coinciding with anormal high temperatures experienced during a summer period. Additionally, we experimentally test in the laboratory the cause-effect of those temperatures and UV radiation conditions experienced in the field on C. crinita populations. Although, C. crinita is able to resist high temperature picks, usually reached in Mediterranean summers, exceptional and maintained periods as those experienced during extreme events (28ºC) lead to the death of all individuals, compromising the viability and conservation of these forest-forming populations. We show how climate change may seriously compromise algal populations and synergically act with historical drivers of macroalgal decline (pollution, habitat destruction and herbivorism). Financial support from EU2020 (R+I) under grant agreement No 689518 (MERCES), MINECO (CGL2016-76341-R) and from University of Girona under congress assistance fellowship program for PhD and master students.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Mediterranean climate
0303 health sciences
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
biology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
education
Climate change
15. Life on land
Cystoseira
biology.organism_classification
01 natural sciences
03 medical and health sciences
Oceanography
Geography
Mediterranean sea
13. Climate action
Effects of global warming
14. Life underwater
030304 developmental biology
010606 plant biology & botany
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC, instname
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....b1206b60e68d8e06702e80cee937b94b
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26804v1