The effects of climate change are now more pervasive than ever. Marine ecosystems have been particularly impacted by climate change, with many being on the brink of collapse. This is the case for Mediterranean coralligenous assemblages, a complex and highly diverse marine ecosystem that has suffered dramatic declines over the past decade due to rising temperatures. To halt the impacts of climate change the international efforts to reduce carbon emissions have never been so ambitious. However, even in the most optimistic CO₂ emission scenarios, the planet will continue to warm and experience the effects of climate change over the coming decades. For this reason, understanding the resilience of these key habitats to warmer temperatures is crucial to predict their viability under future climatic conditions. Here, we will present our work exploring the resilience of Mediterranean coralligenous populations from a long-term marine protected area. More specifically, we use demographic data for the key coralligenous species Paramuricea clavata to quantify its capacity to resist and recover from future disturbances, comparing contemporary data against populations from the early 2000s. Overall, our results show that the demographic resilience of P. clavata populations has decreased dramatically, through a sharp drop in their resistance to disturbances. These findings confirm that future climatic conditions will make these populations even more vulnerable to further perturbations, highlighting the importance of limiting the impacts of other threats to them.

Primary Presenter: Pol Capdevila, Universitat de Barcelona (pcapdevila.pc@gmail.com)

Authors:

Pol Capdevila, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain   (pcapdevila.pc@gmail.com)

Yanis Zentner, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Graciel·la Rovira, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Eneko Aspillaga, Instituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados (IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB), Esporles, Spain  ()

David Casals, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Laura Figuerola-Ferrando, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Joaquim Garrabou, Institut de Ciències del Mar-CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49 08003 Barcelona, Spain  ()

Daniel Gómez-Gras, Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Kaneohe, Hawaii, USA  ()

Bernat Hereu, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Núria Margarit, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Alba Medrano, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Júlia Ortega, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Marta Pagès-Escolà, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()

Cristina Linares, Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBIO), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain  ()