History of red coral (Corallium rubrum, L. 1758) change in biometric parameters and carbon retention capacity: a meta-analysis in NW Mediterranean
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1
Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Spain
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2
Catalan Institute for Research and Advance Studies (ICREA), Spain
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3
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento, Italy
The lack of published long time-span and geographically wide data of red coral (Corallium rubrum; Linnaeus, 1758) is limiting our capability of determining its ecological historical role. This study is addressing this limitation by compiling historical C. rubrum biometric ecological data to tackle population trends and carbon retention capacity and determine how the Mediterranean population changed over time. To achieve this goal, we performed a meta-analysis using quantitative and qualitative data obtained from academic and grey documents retrieved from scientific web browsers, scientific libraries, requests to scientists, and from the references of the pre-selected documents from all previous sources. From this documentation, first we identified, and then compiled information on red coral’s most reported biometric parameters within a depth limit of 60 m: basal diameter, height and weight inside the Catalan Sea and the Ligurian Sea. For both regions, yearly averages were obtained for each parameter. We also estimated C. rubrum’s potential area, colony numbers, total weight, carbon input, and carbon retention in its skeleton. Red coral’s basal diameter, height and biomass values decreased in both regions until the 1990s. Then, from the 2000s, the value of such parameters increased, surpassing the levels of the 1960s (Liguria) or slightly lower than the 1980s (Catalan Sea). The carbon flux difference between the oldest (1960s: Liguria; 1970s: Catalan Sea) and the lowest (1990s) biomass value is nearly double. Recovery trends in C. rubrum observed in the last decades are biased due to the data from protected colonies concentrated in few areas, leaving large unprotected coral areas without quantitative information. The shift in the decreasing trend observed in the 1990s coincides with the exhaustion of coral fishing banks and the Mediterranean trawling ban. The recovery of C. rubrum signals the effectiveness of protection measures. Recovery in the Catalan Sea is lower than in the Ligurian Sea due to more frequent poaching events in the former, where the coral is of higher quality. C. rubrum mitigation capacity for climate change (in the form of stored carbon) has drastically changed in few decades. Probably the red coral nowadays, in these limited protected areas, is a pale reflex of what it was only one century ago all over the Mediterranean Sea.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank to Biblioteca Carles Bas i Peired (CSIC-CMIMA, Barcelona) and Bibliothèque du Laboratoire Arago (BUPMC, Banyuls-sur-mer), especially Ignacio J. Castaño Pacho, Sandrine Bodin and Lorenzo Bramanti. We also thank the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017 SGR - 1588). This work contributes to the ICTA-UAB “Unit of Excellence” (MDM2015-0552). Finally, thanks to all the scientists that help us to obtain rare documents.
Keywords:
Corallium rubrum,
Red coral,
Mediterranean,
historical marine ecology,
Catalan Sea,
Ligurian Sea,
Meta-analaysis,
Carbon retention capacity,
Biometric parameters,
coralligenous
Conference:
XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) , Braga, Portugal, 9 Sep - 12 Sep, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Ecology, Biodiversity and Vulnerable Ecosystems
Citation:
Mallo
M,
Ziveri
P,
Reyes-García
V and
Rossi
S
(2019). History of red coral (Corallium rubrum, L. 1758) change in biometric parameters and carbon retention capacity: a meta-analysis in NW Mediterranean.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2019.08.00035
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Received:
13 May 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
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Correspondence:
Mx. Miguel Mallo, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Bellaterra, Spain, miguelmallo91@gmail.com