Objective Human activities have extensively altered the global environment, changing biological cycles, transforming land and oceans, and enhancing the mobility of biota. These changes have also altered the biological diversity producing important ecosystem and soci etal consequences. The need to collect long-term data sets has been stressed by marine ecologists because such data provide baselines to verify trends in marine communities. Long-term approaches produce meaningful data, essential for the conservation of bi odiversity and the successful management of marine ecosystems.The Mediterranean coralligenous benthic communities are valuable from the ecological viewpoint, beautiful as seascapes, and unique communities. However, they are among the most endangered Medite rranean ecosystems due to overexploitation of living resources, urban development, anthropogenic effects on water quality, and the increase of diving tourism. In addition to this scenario, the mass mortality event of invertebrates detected in 1999 and 2003 has been associated with elevate seawater temperatures supposedly related to global climate changeTherefore the aim of this project is to understand the ecological structure and dynamics and of NW Mediterranean coralligenous communities, which are conside red particularly sensitive to global climate change. To achieve this goal this study integrates complementary approaches to enhance our ecological knowledge and to determine how resilient Mediterranean communities are. This scientific project is based on t he analysis of decadal trends of two photographic series of these communities and on population genetics experiments of key species. The expected results will provide the proper scientific context for biological conservation of the diverse Mediterranean co ralligenous communities. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsnatural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrologynatural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystemsnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changesnatural sciencesbiological scienceszoologyinvertebrate zoology Keywords Biodiversity GIS Mediterranean benthic communities climate change conservation landscape ecology long-term series population genetics underwater images Programme(s) FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006 Topic(s) MOBILITY-2.1 - Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships (EIF) Call for proposal FP6-2002-MOBILITY-5 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme EIF - Marie Curie actions-Intra-European Fellowships Coordinator CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE EU contribution No data Address 3 Rue Michel-Ange PARIS France See on map Links Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
