Active restoration of a long-lived octocoral drives rapid functional recovery in a temperate reef.

Whether restoration actions achieve full ecological recovery is still debated. This is particularly controversial in the marine realm, where the success of restoration is mostly evaluated in terms of the short-term survival of transplanted organisms. In view of this, we combined population and trait-based approaches to explore the long-term effectiveness of active restoration of a key Mediterranean octocoral.

When resilience is not enough: 2022 extreme marine heatwave threatens climatic refugia for a habitat-forming Mediterranean octocoral.

Climate change is impacting ecosystems worldwide, and the Mediterranean Sea is no exception. Extreme climatic events, such as marine heat waves (MHWs), are increasing in frequency, extent and intensity during the last decades, which has been associated with an increase in mass mortality events for multiple species. Coralligenous assemblages, where the octocoral Paramuricea clavata lives, are strongly affected by MHWs.

Cross-basin and cross-taxa patterns of marine community tropicalization and deborealization in warming European seas.

Ocean warming and acidification, decreases in dissolved oxygen concentrations, and changes in primary production are causing an unprecedented global redistribution of marine life. The identification of underlying ecological processes underpinning marine species turnover, particularly the prevalence of increases of warm-water species or declines of cold-water species, has been recently debated in the context of ocean warming. Here, we track changes in the mean thermal affinity of marine communities across European seas by calculating the Community Temperature Index for 65 biodiversity time series collected over four decades and containing 1,817 species from different communities (zooplankton, coastal benthos, pelagic and demersal invertebrates and fish).