Document of bibliographic reference 323975

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Modelling the effects of climate change on the distribution of benthic indicator species in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

The potential effects of climate change on the distribution of benthic species commonly used in marine ecological quality assessment were investigated using a spatial modelling approach. In this work, the relevance of the ecological groups that macrofaunal molluscs are assigned according to their sensitivity or tolerance to environmental disturbance was examined under the scope of the RCP 8.5 severe emissions scenario. The effects of climate change were more profound on species that are indicative of a specific suite of climatic conditions regarding temperature and salinity. Significant loss of habitat suitability was observed for the tolerant species Corbula gibba and Abra prismatica whereas the sensitive species Moerella donacina was least affected. In contrast, an overall expansion of the distributional potential was observed for the sensitive species Flexopecten hyalinus as newly suitable habitats are formed. As hypothesised, the current ecological grouping that depicts the sensitivity of a benthic species to an environmental stressor is irrelevant when assessing the effects of climate change. We propose a new standpoint of using benthic species as biotic tools based on their ecological niche requirements.

WebOfScience code

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000461676600003

Bibliographic citation

Moraitis, M.L.; Valavanis, V.D.; Karakassis, I. (2019). Modelling the effects of climate change on the distribution of benthic indicator species in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Sci. Total Environ. 667: 16-24. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.338

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true