{"id":6082,"date":"2020-11-26T17:07:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T15:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/?p=6082"},"modified":"2020-11-26T17:07:44","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T15:07:44","slug":"projected-rapid-habitat-expansion-of-tropical-seagrass-species-in-the-mediterranean-sea-as-climate-change-progresses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/projected-rapid-habitat-expansion-of-tropical-seagrass-species-in-the-mediterranean-sea-as-climate-change-progresses\/","title":{"rendered":"Projected Rapid Habitat Expansion of Tropical Seagrass Species in the Mediterranean Sea as Climate Change Progresses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Authors: <\/strong>Pedro Beca-Carretero, Mirta Teichberg,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/gidon-winters-ph-decology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Gidon Winters<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Gabriele Procaccini, Hauke Reuter<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published in:\u00a0<\/strong>Frontiers<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doi: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fpls.2020.555376\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fpls.2020.555376<\/a><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>During the last 150 years, the tropical seagrass species\u00a0<i>Halophila stipulacea<\/i>\u00a0has established itself in the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea. More recently (2018),\u00a0<i>Halophila decipiens<\/i>\u00a0was observed for the first time in the eastern Mediterranean, and was described as the second non-native seagrass species in the Mediterranean Sea. We implemented a species distribution model (SDM) approach to (1) hindcast the habitat suitability of\u00a0<i>H. stipulacea<\/i>\u00a0over the last 100 years in the Mediterranean basin, and (2) to model the increase in the potential habitat suitability of\u00a0<i>H. stipulacea<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0<i>H. decipiens<\/i>\u00a0during the current century under two very different climate scenarios, RCP 2.6 (lowest carbon emission scenario) and RCP 8.5 (highest carbon emission scenario). In addition, a principal component analysis (PCA) and\u00a0<i>k<\/i>-means cluster based on temperature and salinity drivers were applied to visualize the distance and relatedness between the native and invasive\u00a0<i>H. stipulacea<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0<i>H. decipiens<\/i>\u00a0populations. Results from this PCA suggest that the\u00a0<i>H. stipulacea<\/i>\u00a0populations of the Mediterranean and Red Sea are likely to be similar. In contrast,\u00a0<i>H. decipiens<\/i>\u00a0from the Mediterranean is more related to the Atlantic populations rather than to the Red Sea populations. The hindcast model suggests that the expansion of\u00a0<i>H. stipulacea<\/i>\u00a0was related to the increases in seawater temperatures in the Mediterranean over the last 100 years. The SDMs predict that more suitable habitat will become available for both tropical species during this century. The habitat suitability for\u00a0<i>H. stipulacea<\/i>\u00a0will keep expanding westward and northward as the Mediterranean continues to become saltier and warmer. In comparison, the SDMs built for\u00a0<i>H. decipiens<\/i>\u00a0forecast a restricted habitat suitability in the south-eastern Mediterranean Sea at the present environmental conditions and predicts a progressive expansion with a potential increase in habitat suitability along 85% of the Mediterranean coastline. The predicted rapid expansion of non-native seagrass species could alter the Mediterranean\u2019s seagrass community and may entail massive impacts on associated ecosystem functions and services, impacts that have severe socio-economic consequences.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6083\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6083\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-6083 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001-1024x510.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001-1024x510.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001-600x299.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001-300x149.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001-768x382.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001-1536x764.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001.jpg 1919w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6083\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 1. Predicted maps of habitat suitability and distribution of Halophila stipulacea over the last 100 years (1920, 1950, 1970, and 2019) based on sea surface temperature (SST). Purple points represent the current distribution of H. stipulacea in the Mediterranean Sea.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authors: Pedro Beca-Carretero, Mirta Teichberg,\u00a0Gidon Winters,\u00a0Gabriele Procaccini, Hauke Reuter Published in:\u00a0Frontiers Doi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fpls.2020.555376 Abstract During the last 150 years, the tropical seagrass species\u00a0Halophila stipulacea\u00a0has established itself in the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea. More recently (2018),\u00a0Halophila decipiens\u00a0was observed for the first time in the eastern Mediterranean, and was described as the second [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[217],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-article"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fpls-11-555376-g001.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6084,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082\/revisions\/6084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}