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

长期的仪器和观测数据系列对于分析当前人为气候变化背景下的物理化学和生态趋势以及海洋领域的相关影响至关重要。然而，这样的系列是稀缺的和有时间限制的，这一问题已部分解决，近年来与代理和古生物学方法的使用，这使得获得延长的时间范围的关键信息。虽然这些方法越来越多地用于热带珊瑚礁，但在地中海等温带海洋中的实施非常罕见。地中海被认为是受气候变化影响最大的区域之一，近年来，与变暖有关的大规模死亡一再影响地中海底栖生物群落。由于关于水温和生物反应的数据系列有限，关于灾难性死亡及其与ACC的关联的信息仅限于地中海过去20年。然而，需要更广泛的时间范围，以更好地了解和背景下目前的快速环境变化和物种的反应，并更好地预测未来的后果ACC在地中海底栖生态系统。尽管它在当前气候背景下的重要性，多学科研究这一主题，结合古生态学，现代生态学，观测和仪器数据系列，并使用代理，是缺乏在地中海。这项研究提案旨在填补这些知识空白，并提供制定未来预测和情景以及健全的管理和保护政策所急需的信息。因此，本提案的主要目标是研究ACC在地中海产生的影响及其在较长时间范围内对海洋生物群的影响，目的是及时了解当前的影响，并分析其与环境变化率的关系。为了实现这一目标，我将扩大现有的仪器和观测数据系列的代理人的帮助下，以获得知识的趋势和速度的当前和过去的环境变化，其生态影响，并寻找潜在的适应和恢复过程中的生物。这项研究是基于，1）独特的长期，高分辨率，仪器和观测数据系列的水温和生物反应ACC;和2）使用地中海造礁珊瑚Cladocora caespitosa作为目前变化的生物指标，并作为档案过去的环境和生态变化的地球化学和sclerochronical分析。总之，我将测试的假设，最近的影响有关ACC在地中海底栖生物群落是前所未有的，并与环境变化的速度，这可能是超过生物体的适应能力的加速。

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.