Studying anthropogenic climate change in the Mediterranean Sea beyond instrumental data: the temperate coral Cladocora caespitosa as bioindicator and archive of environmental and ecological changes

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Long-term instrumental and observational data series are crucial to analyse physicochemical and ecological trends in the current context of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) and related impacts in the marine realm. However, such series are scarce and time-limited, a problem that has been partially solved in recent years with the use of proxies and paleobiological approaches, which have allowed to obtain crucial information on extended time-ranges. While these approaches have been increasingly used in tropical reefs, their implementation in temperate seas, such as the Mediterranean, is very scarce. The Mediterranean is considered as one of the regions most impacted by climate change and warming-related mass mortalities have recurrently affected Mediterranean benthic communities in recent years. Because of the limited data series on water temperature and biological responses, information on catastrophic mortalities and their association to ACC is restricted to the past ~20 years in the Mediterranean Sea. However, wider time ranges are needed to better understand and contextualise current rapid environmental changes and species' responses, and to better project future consequences of ACC in Mediterranean benthic ecosystems. Despite its importance in the current climatic context, multidisciplinary research on this topic, combining paleoecology, modern ecology, observational and instrumental data series, and the use of proxies, is lacking in the Mediterranean Sea. This research proposal aims to fill these knowledge gaps and provide information highly demanded to develop future projections and scenarios, as well as sound management and conservation policies. Therefore, the main goal of this proposal is to study ACC-derived effects in the Mediterranean Sea and their impact on marine biota over an extended time range, with the aim to contextualise current impacts in time and analyse their association with rates of environmental change. To reach this goal I will expand the existing instrumental and observational data series with the help of proxies to gain knowledge on trends and rates of current and past environmental changes, their ecological effects, and search for potential adaptation and recovery processes in organisms. This research is based on, 1) unique long-term, high resolution, instrumental and observational data series of water temperature and biological responses to ACC; and 2) the use of the Mediterranean reef-builder coral Cladocora caespitosa as both bioindicator of current changes, and as archive for past environmental and ecological changes by means of geochemical and sclerochronological analyses. Altogether I will test the hypothesis that recent impacts related to ACC in Mediterranean benthic communities are unprecedented and associated to the acceleration in the rates of environmental change, which could potentially be exceeding the adaptation capacity of organisms.