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The correlations between skeletal parameters (bulk density, micro-density and porosity), coral age and sea surface temperature were assessed along a latitudinal gradient in the zooxanthellate coral Balanophyllia europaea and in the azooxanthellate coral Leptopsammia pruvoti. In both coral species, the variation of bulk density was more influenced by the variation of porosity than of micro-density. With increasing polyp age, B. europaea formed denser and less porous skeletons while L. pruvoti showed the opposite trend, becoming less dense and more porous. B. europaea skeletons were generally less porous (more dense) than those of L. pruvoti, probably as a consequence of the different habitats colonized by the two species. Increasing temperature had a negative impact on the zooxanthellate species, leading to an increase of porosity. In contrast, micro-density increased with temperature in the azooxanthellate species. It is hypothesized that the increase in porosity with increasing temperatures observed in B. europaea could depend on an attenuation of calcification due to an inhibition of the photosynthetic process at elevated temperatures, while the azooxanthellate species appears more resistant to variations of temperature, highlighting possible differences in the sensitivity/tolerance of these two coral species to temperature changes in face of global climate change.

Earth’s biodiversity and human societies face pollution, overconsumption of natural resources, urbanization, demographic shifts, social and economic inequalities, and habitat loss, many of which are exacerbated by climate change. Here, we review links among climate, biodiversity, and society and develop a roadmap toward sustainability. These include limiting warming to 1.5°C and effectively conserving and restoring functional ecosystems on 30 to 50% of land, freshwater, and ocean “scapes.” We envision a mosaic of interconnected protected and shared spaces, including intensively used spaces, to strengthen self-sustaining biodiversity, the capacity of people and nature to adapt to and mitigate climate change, and nature’s contributions to people. Fostering interlinked human, ecosystem, and planetary health for a livable future urgently requires bold implementation of transformative policy interventions through interconnected institutions, governance, and social systems from local to global levels.

Freshwater fish communities are impacted by multiple pressures, determining loss of functional diversity and redundancy. Our aim was to disentangle the roles and relevancies of different pressures in shaping fish communities in small streams of the Po plain (North Italy). Long term trend (1998-2018) of functional diversity of 31 fish communities was assessed and modeled in respect to three potential pressures: temperature increase, intensity of exotic fish invasion, and habitat quality degradation. Ecological traits mostly influenced by the pressures were also identified. Reduction of functional richness mostly due to local extinction or contraction of cold adapted predators, such as salmonids, was linked to increasing temperatures. Warming probably also led to a shift of generalist and dominant species, which became more abundant in streams hosting mixed communities of salmonids and cyprinids, and determined the increase of functional dispersion and uniqueness. Reduction of functional redundancy and increasing functional dispersion were both also related to the introduction of new ecological traits brought by expanding exotic species. Low functional overlap was found among native and exotic species, indicating that the invasion process was mainly controlled by competitive interactions and/or resource opportunism. Functional response to habitat quality was not clearly evident. In conclusion, the impact of temperature increase and exotic species on fish functional diversity was effective, idiosyncratic and mediated by the scale of analysis and by the intensity of pressures.

Scleractinian cold-water corals (CWC) act as key ecosystem engineers in deep-sea reef environments worldwide. However, our current understanding of their trophic ecology is still limited, particularly in understudied temperate oceanic regions such as the Mediterranean Sea. Hence, this study investigated the trophic ecology of the CWC Desmophyllum dianthus and Madrepora oculata by employing lipid biomarker techniques and compound-specific isotope analyses on coral tissues, suspended particulate organic matter (sPOM), and surface sediment sampled in a Mediterranean CWC habitat. CWC exhibited high contents of poly- and monounsaturated fatty acids (FA) (>=49 and 32 % of FA, respectively) and cholesterol (>=67 % of sterols), while sPOM and sediment samples were enriched in saturated FA (>=44 % of FA) and sitosterol (>=35 % of sterols). CWC contained some rare very long-chained polyunsaturated FA (>C22) and ergosterol absent in sPOM and sediment samples. Our results indicate that Mediterranean CWC mainly consume living food items, rather than detrital sPOM or resuspended sediment, and provide evidence for preferred feeding on omnivorous and carnivorous zooplankton. Overall, these findings provide new insights to the trophic ecology of two common CWC from the Mediterranean Sea.

Models are useful tools for predicting the impact of global change on species distribution and abundance. As ectotherms, fish are being challenged to adapt or track changes in their environment, either in time through a phenological shift or in space by a biogeographic shift. Past modelling efforts have largely been based on correlative Species Distribution Models, which use known occurrences of species across landscapes of interest to define sets of conditions under which species are likely to maintain populations. The practical advantages of this correlative approach are its simplicity and the flexibility in terms of datarequirements. However, effective conservation management requires models that make projections beyond the range of available data. One way to deal with such an extrapolation is to use a mechanistic approach based on physiological processes underlying climate change effects on organisms. Here we illustrate two approaches for developing physiology-based models to characterize fish habitat suitability. (i) Aerobic Scope Models (ASM) are based on the relationship between environmental factors and aerobic scope (defined as the difference between maximum and standard (basal) metabolism). This approach is based on experimental data collected by using a number of treatments that allow a function to be derived to predict aerobic metabolic scope from the stressor/environmental factor(s). This function is then integrated with environmental (oceanographic) data of current and future scenarios. For any given species, this approach allows habitat suitability maps to be generated at various spatiotemporal scales. The strength of the ASM approach relies on the estimate of relative performance when comparing, for example, different locations or different species. (ii) Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) models are based on first principles including the idea that metabolism is organised in the same way within all animals. The (standard) DEB model aims to describe empirical relationships which can be found consistently within physiological data across the animal kingdom. The advantages of the DEB models are that they make useof the generalities found in terms of animal physiology and can therefore be applied to species for which little data or empirical observations are available. In addition, the limitations as well as useful potential refinements of these and other physiology-based modelling approaches are discussed. Inclusion of thephysiological response of various life stages and modelling the patterns of extreme events observed in nature are suggested for future work

Abstract This work investigates the performance of CECO, a third-generation wave energy converter of the oscillating bodies group. The power matrices of the device – which represent the wave power absorbed for different sea states – are obtained for five PTO inclinations. Then, the wave climate along the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula is characterized by means of the wave energy resource matrices. With the power matrices and the wave energy resource matrices, the performance of the device along the area of study is determined for each PTO inclination. To achieve this, the performance of CECO is assessed by means of a panel model based on the boundary element method, while the wave conditions in the area of study are assessed with a wave propagation spectral model. The results allow fulfilling an important knowledge gap concerning the impact of the PTO inclination on the performance of CECO, which was found to be very significant. In addition, the insight obtained will contribute to optimize future versions of CECO and other wave energy converters of the oscillating body type.

Climate change and biological invasions are rapidly reshuffling species distribution, restructuring the biological communities of many ecosystems worldwide. Tracking these transformations in the marine environment is crucial, but our understanding of climate change effects and invasive species dynamics is often hampered by the practical challenge of surveying large geographical areas. Here, we focus on the Mediterranean Sea, a hot spot for climate change and biological invasions to investi- gate recent spatiotemporal changes in fish abundances and distribution. To this end, we accessed the local ecological knowledge (LEK) of small-scale and recreational fish- ers, reconstructing the dynamics of fish perceived as "new" or increasing in different fishing areas. Over 500 fishers across 95 locations and nine different countries were interviewed, and semiquantitative information on yearly changes in species abun- dance was collected. Overall, 75 species were mentioned by the respondents, mostly warm-adapted species of both native and exotic origin. Respondents belonging to the same biogeographic sectors described coherent spatial and temporal patterns, and gradients along latitudinal and longitudinal axes were revealed. This information pro- vides a more complete understanding of the shifting distribution of Mediterranean fishes and it also demonstrates that adequately structured LEK methodology might be applied successfully beyond the local scale, across national borders and jurisdic- tions. Acknowledging this potential through macroregional coordination could pave the way for future large-scale aggregations of individual observations, increasing our potential for integrated monitoring and conservation planning at the regional or even global level. This might help local communities to better understand, manage, and Email: eazzurr@gmail.com Funding information European Regional Development Fund, Grant/Award Number: MPA-Adapt 1MED15_3.2_M2_337; Albert II of Monaco Foundation 1 | INTRODUCTION The redistribution of Earth's species is among the most evident con- sequences of global warming (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003; Poloczanska et al., 2016) and a critical aspect for the health of both natural eco- systems and human populations worldwide (Pecl et al., 2017). These changes are usually greater for marine environments, because of their high environmental connectivity (Burrows et al., 2011) and because of the pivotal role of water temperatures, which strongly influence growth, survival, and reproduction in marine animals (Crozier & Hutchings, 2014; Reusch, 2014). In fact, even apparently modest changes in water temperature might trigger a rapid cascade of multiple pressures over marine organisms. Some species, unable to cope with these environmental alterations, or benefit from them, may change their abundances accordingly. However, mobile marine organisms also have another option: they can move to new areas where they were formerly absent (Cheung et al., 2009; Fogarty, Burrows, Pecl, Robinson, & Poloczanska, 2017). These two dynamics are not mutually exclusive, as they can be considered as different be- havioral and demographic responses that might coexist in the same species or population. Specifically, in the northern hemisphere, seawater warming has been associated with both the northward expansion of species and their increasing abundances (Fossheim et al., 2015; Perry, Low, Ellis, & Reynolds, 2005; Pörtner & Knust, 2007; Sabatés, Paloma, Lloret, & Raya, 2006). Yet, many studies provided evidence for the causal relationship between temperature, species distribution, and abun- dance (Cheung, Watson, & Pauly, 2013; Pinsky, Worm, Fogarty, Sarmiento, & Levin, 2013; Poloczanska et al., 2013) as well as their interplay with other global drivers, such as biological invasions, ma- rine overexploitation, and pollution (Stergiou, 2002; Walther et al., 2009). These changes, which are taking place across many differ- ent taxa and through different regions of the globe, have significant implications for biodiversity, ecosystems, and society (McGeoch & Latombe, 2016) and are considered to be particularly apparent in the Mediterranean, a semi-enclosed sea, which is warming faster than any other marine region in the world (Schroeder, Chiggiato, Bryden, Borghini, & Ben Ismail, 2016; Vargas-Yáñez et al., 2008). In addition, maritime traffic, mariculture, aquarium trade and above all, entries through the Suez Canal (Edelist, Rilov, Golani, Carlton, & Spanier, 2013; Parravicini, Azzurro, Kulbicki, & Belmaker, 2015) contribute to the introduction of a large number of nonindigenous species (hereafter referred as NIS) to this basin (Galil, Marchini, Occhipinti- Ambrogi, & Ojaveer, 2017; Golani et al., 2018; Zenetos et al., 2017), reshaping the structure of biological communities (Albouy et al., 2013, 2015, 2014; Katsanevakis et al., 2017) and impacting biodi- versity and fishery resources (Edelist et al., 2013). Despite the magnitude of these changes and their relevance for conservation and adaptation policy (Givan, Parravicini, Kulbicki, & Belmaker, 2017; Marras et al., 2015), observational studies are often fragmented in space (Elmendorf et al., 2015) and methodologically heterogeneous (Coll et al., 2010). This also applies to the northward expansions of warmwater species, a phenomenon that has been mostly described in the northwestern sectors of the Mediterranean basin, probably due to the uneven distribution of research ef- forts (Boero et al., 2008; Lejeusne, Chevaldonné, Pergent-Martini, Boudouresque, & Pérez, 2010; Marbà, Jordà, Agustí, Girard, & Duarte, 2015; Sabatés, Martín, & Raya, 2012). This fragmentation, together with the lack of coherent depictions of change, hampers the availability of reliable information to stakeholders and decision-mak- ers (Grafton, 2010; Pauly & Zeller, 2016). Indeed, in light of profound impacts that have already affected both people and the ecosystems they depend on, many national and transnational authorities and agencies are engaged in efforts to build adaptive capacity, seeking reliable information to enable people to anticipate and appropriately respond to the ongoing change (Coulthard, 2012). This explains the growing need of integrated monitoring and assessment systems to capture the ongoing transformations of marine ecosystems (includ- ing the effects of a changing climate) and to bring them into the pol- icy agendas (Creighton, Hobday, Lockwood, & Pecl, 2016). Certainly, our observational potential grew steadily during the last few years and increasing efforts are devoted to conceive global observation systems for up-to-date information on the state of biodiversity and the threats it faces (Tittensor et al., 2014). To achieve this, the use of standardized and cost-effective procedures is needed to underpin a large-scale observation strategy that can accommodate countries across a range of baseline knowledge levels and capabilities (Bélisle, Asselin, LeBlanc, & Gauthier, 2018; Latombe et al., 2017). These are key principles for collecting and integrating information from stake- holders across national boundaries. In this, fishers are a particularly interesting group of stakeholders, as they spend a considerable proportion of their lives in close contact with the marine environ- ment and they become familiar with local species. Therefore, their personal experience gained through individuals' observations over adapt to the ongoing biotic transformations driven by climate change and biological invaders.

AbstractAimThe development of approaches to predict the distribution and potential expansion of invasive species is still an open challenge. Here our goal is to improve the modelling procedure for marine invaders by coupling Species Distribution Models (SDMs) with an analysis of their univariate niche dynamics. In particular, we tested for the first time whether choosing model predictors among the stable niche dimensions was effective in improving predictions of invasive species expansion.LocationMediterranean Sea.TaxonDusky spinefoot, Siganus luridus.MethodsWe analysed the univariate niche dynamics for S. luridus across its native and invaded ranges, by applying a standardized framework that allowed the identification of cases of niche stability or shift. We compared inter‐range transferability of SDMs fitted with different combinations of labile or stable predictors. Finally, we evaluated interactions in SDM settings (calibration area, model technique and predictors set) on models’ predictive ability, using independent data from the most recent phase of invasion.ResultsWe detected a pattern of niche stability for several variables, especially salinity and bathymetry, which positively influenced model inter‐ranges transferability: when the models calibrated in the native range include only stable niche axes, predictive ability is improved. We also identified a shift towards lower surface temperatures in the introduced range, which were almost never experienced by the species before invasion. The model calibrated within the combined ranges was the most ecologically congruent. Also, models calibrated in the invaded range allowed a correct prediction of range expansion, with the predicted suitable areas only slightly underestimated.Main conclusionsWe provide the first evidence that using conserved predictors in SDMs improves inter‐range projections of expanding invasive species. Variable selection, calibration area and modelling technique all matter when modelling invasive species, with important interaction effects. We provide guidelines on how to improve SDMs applications in biological invasion research.