Crustose coralline algae exhibit complex responses to breakage under current and future climate scenarios.

Rising pressures from local and global stressors on marine benthic habitats require understanding of their effects on habitat forming species like Crustose Coralline Algae (CCA), which play a crucial role in ecosystem diversity and structure. Here, the impact of mechanical damage and warming on the CCA species Lithophyllum stictiforme was investigated in the Mediterranean Sea using a manipulative field transplant experiment that takes advantage of temperature variations between depths of 35 m and 15 m as proxies for current and future climate scenarios. A significant effect of mechanical damage and warming on the growth angle of the thalli was detected, while no interactive effects on the other biological traits were observed.

Soundscape analysis can be an effective tool in assessing seagrass restoration early success.

Restoration of vulnerable marine habitats is becoming increasingly popular to cope with widespread habitat loss and the resulting decline in biodiversity and ecosystem services. Lately, restoration strategies have been employed to enhance the recovery of degraded meadows of the Mediterranean endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica. Typically, habitat restoration success is evaluated by the persistence of foundation species after transplantation (e.

How the seagrass Posidonia oceanica flowering will benefit from climate change.

This study aimed at identifying the importance of the thermal framework preceding Posidonia oceanica flowering induction (autumn before the flowering year) and anthesis (summer of the flowering year). In 53 locations of Sardinia (Italy), 35 vertical shoots were collected in 2001, 2020 and 2023 and analyzed through lepidochronology, detecting past flowering events from 1991 to 2022. Flowering probability was positively correlated with autumn SST range and MHWs, stressing the importance of the temperature in the year preceding the flowering.

Resistance of Posidonia oceanica seedlings to warming: Investigating the importance of the lag-phase duration between two heat events to thermo-priming.

The increase of marine heat waves (MHWs) occurrence is exacerbated in Mediterranean Sea and temperature resilience-enhancing strategies on key species, such as the seagrass Posidonia oceanica, need to be investigated. "Priming" describes a stimulus that prepares an organism for an improved response to upcoming environmental changes by triggering a memory that remains during a lag-phase. The aim of this study, conducted in Sardinia (Italy), was to investigate whether the development of thermo-primed P.

Predation risk of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus juveniles in an overfished area reveal system stability mechanisms and restocking challenges.

Where sea urchin harvest has been so intense that populations have drastically regressed, concerns have arisen about the effectiveness of harvesting management. According to the theory of phase transition in shallow rocky reefs between vegetated and barren habitats, sea urchin recruitment, a key population structuring process, seems hampered by some stabilizing feedback despite an end to local human harvest of sea urchins. To shed a light on predation effects on sea urchin recruits, a 27-day field experiment was conducted using mega-predator exclusion cages (40x40x40 cm, 1 cm in mesh size) in barren and turf substrates.

The resilience of transplanted seagrass traits encourages detection of restoration success.

Restoration of coastal ecosystems, particularly those dominated by seagrasses, has become a priority to recover the important ecosystem services they provide. However, assessing restoration outcomes as a success or failure remains still difficult, probably due to the unique features of seagrass species and the wide portfolio of practices used on transplanting actions. Here, several traits (maximum leaf length, number of leaves, leaf growth rate per shoot, and leaf elemental carbon and nitrogen contents) of transplanted seagrass Posidonia oceanica were compared to reference meadows in five sites of Western Mediterranean Sea in which restoration were completed in different times.

Intensive sea urchin harvest rescales population structure and threatens self-sustenance.

The harvest of the edible sea urchin is intensively practiced in some regions of the Western Mediterranean Sea. The removal of the largest individuals can determine an overall reduction in population size and a size class truncation that can lead to a drastic drop the self-sustenance. The aim of this study is to evaluate the variability of the population reproductive potential across 5 years in one of the main harvest hotspots of Sardinia (Western Mediterranean Sea).

Areas of spatial overlap between common bottlenose dolphin, recreational boating, and small-scale fishery: management insights from modelling exercises.

Background: Sustainable management requires spatial mapping of both species distribution and human activities to identify potential risk of conflict. The common bottlenose dolphin () is a priority species of the European Union Habitat Directive, thus, to promote its conservation, the understanding of habitat use and distribution, as well as the identification and spatial trend of the human activities which may directly affect populations traits, is pivotal.

Methods: A MaxEnt modeling approach was applied to predict the seasonal (from April to September) habitat use of a small of bottlenose dolphins in the north-western Sardinia (Mediterranean Sea) in relation to environmental variables and the likelihoods of boat and fishing net presence.

Cultivable mycoflora on bleached, decaying and healthy Posidonia oceanica leaves in a warm-edge Mediterranean location.

Marine fungi are widely distributed in the ocean, playing an important role in the ecosystems, but only little information is available about their occurrence and activity. Seagrass bleaching is also a neglected phenomenon that seems to be linked to warm environments, even though the causes are still to be defined. In this study, the cultivable mycoflora associated to the leaf conditions (bleached, necrotic and live) and section (from the base to the tip) in the seagrass Posidonia oceanica was investigated in a Mediterranean warm-edge location (Cyprus).

Sources of variability in seagrass fatty acid profiles and the need of identifying reliable warming descriptors.

Global warming is expected to have inexorable and profound effects on marine ecosystems, particularly in foundation species such as seagrasses. Identifying responses to warming and comparing populations across natural temperature gradients can inform how future warming will impact the structure and function of ecosystems. Here, we investigated how thermal environment, intra-shoot and spatial variability modulate biochemical responses of the Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica.

Nutrient conditions determine the strength of herbivore-mediated stabilizing feedbacks in barrens.

Abiotic environmental conditions can significantly influence the way species interact. In particular, plant-herbivore interactions can be substantially dependent on temperature and nutrients. The overall product of these relationships is critical for the fate and stability of vegetated ecosystems like marine forests.

Field development of Posidonia oceanica seedlings changes under predicted acidification conditions.

Ocean acidification has been consistently evidenced to have profound and lasting impacts on marine species. Observations have shown seagrasses to be highly susceptible to future increased pCO conditions, but the responses of early life stages as seedlings are poorly understood. This study aimed at evaluating how projected Mediterranean Sea acidification affects the survival, morphological and biochemical development of Posidonia oceanica seedlings through a long-term field experiment along a natural low pH gradient.

Effects of high temperature and marine heat waves on seagrasses: Is warming affecting the nutritional value of Posidonia oceanica?

Primary producers nutritional content affects the entire food web. Here, changes in nutritional value associated with temperature rise and the occurrence of marine heat waves (MHWs) were explored in the endemic Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica. The variability of fatty acids (FAs) composition and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) content were examined during summer 2021 from five Mediterranean sites located at the same latitude but under different thermal environments.

Field thermo acclimation increases the resilience of Posidonia oceanica seedlings to marine heat waves.

Acclimation is a response that results from chronic exposure of an individual to a new environment. This study aimed to investigate whether the thermal environment affects the early development of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica, and whether the effects of a field-simulated Marine Heat Wave (MHW) on seedlings change depending on acclimation. The experiment was done in the field using a crossed design of Acclimation (acclimated vs unacclimated) and MHW (present vs absent) factors.

Collating evidence on the restoration efforts of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica: current knowledge and gaps.

Seagrass meadows are important shallow coastal ecosystems due to their contribution to enhancing biodiversity, nutrient cycling, carbon burial, and sediment stabilisation, but the maintenance of their integrity has been threatened by several anthropogenic disturbances. Active restoration is considered a reliable strategy to enhance recovery of seagrass ecosystems, and decision making for correct seagrass restoration management requires relying on valuable information regarding the effectiveness of past restoration actions and experimental efforts. Previous experimental efforts and human-mediated active restoration actions of the slow growing seagrass Posidonia oceanica have been collated here by combining a literature systematic review and questionnaires consulting seagrass ecology experts.

Effects of Field Simulated Marine Heatwaves on Sedimentary Organic Matter Quantity, Biochemical Composition, and Degradation Rates.

Since rising temperature (T) will enhance biochemical reactions and coastal marine sediments are hotspots of carbon cycling, marine heatwaves' (MHWs') intensification caused by climate change will affect coastal biogeochemistry. We investigated the effects of MHWs on sediment organic matter (OM) in a nearshore locality (NW Sardinia, Mediterranean Sea) receiving an artificial warm water plume generating T anomalies of 1.5-5.

Determinants of variability in signature whistles of the Mediterranean common bottlenose dolphin.

One of the most studied aspects of animal communication is the acoustic repertoire difference between populations of the same species. While numerous studies have investigated the variability of bottlenose dolphin whistles between populations, very few studies have focused on the signature whistles alone and the factors underlying differentiation of signature whistles are still poorly understood. Here we describe the signature whistles produced by six distinct geographical units of the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) in the Mediterranean Sea and identify the main determinants of their variability.

Sea urchin harvest inside marine protected areas: an opportunity to investigate the effects of exploitation where trophic upgrading is achieved.

Background: Marine protected areas (MPAs) usually have both positive effects of protection for the fisheries' target species and indirect negative effects for sea urchins. Moreover, often in MPAs sea urchin human harvest is restricted, but allowed. This study is aimed at estimating the effect of human harvest of the sea urchin within MPAs, where fish exploitation is restricted and its density is already controlled by a higher natural predation risk.

Marine soundscape and fish biophony of a Mediterranean marine protected area.

Background: Marine soundscape is the aggregation of sound sources known as geophony, biophony, and anthrophony. The soundscape analysis, in terms of collection and analysis of acoustic signals, has been proposed as a tool to evaluate the specific features of ecological assemblages and to estimate their acoustic variability over space and time. This study aimed to characterise the Capo Caccia-Isola Piana Marine Protected Area (Italy, Western Mediterranean Sea) soundscape over short temporal (few days) and spatial scales (few km) and to quantify the main anthropogenic and biological components, with a focus on fish biophonies.

An integrated assessment of the Good Environmental Status of Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas.

Local, regional and global targets have been set to halt marine biodiversity loss. Europe has set its own policy targets to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of marine ecosystems by implementing the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) across member states. We combined an extensive dataset across five Mediterranean ecoregions including 26 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), their reference unprotected areas, and a no-trawl case study.

Trait gradients inform predictions of seagrass meadows changes to future warming.

Comparing populations across temperature gradients can inform how global warming will impact the structure and function of ecosystems. Shoot density, morphometry and productivity of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica to temperature variation was quantified at eight locations in Sardinia (western Mediterranean Sea) along a natural sea surface temperature (SST) gradient. The locations are spanned for a narrow range of latitude (1.

The influence of fish farm activity on the social structure of the common bottlenose dolphin in Sardinia (Italy).

In a wide variety of habitats, including some heavily urbanised areas, the adaptability of populations of common bottlenose dolphin () may depend on the social structure dynamics. Nonetheless, the way in which these adaptations take place is still poorly understood. In the present study we applied photo-identification techniques to investigate the social structure of the common bottlenose dolphin population inhabiting the Gulf of Alghero (Sardinia, Italy), analysing data recorded from 2008 to 2019.

Influence of foraging context on the whistle structure of the common bottlenose dolphin.

Sounds are particularly important for animals that live in complex social communities. In this study, we assessed the communication calls (whistles) that common bottlenose dolphins emit during their foraging activities in the absence and presence of motor boats and during dolphin depredation on trawlers, in Alghero (Sardinia, Italy) and Cres-Lošinj Archipelago (Croatia). The latter behaviour involves foraging on concentrated food sources during very noisy human activity and may require the emission of distinctive whistles.