Halophila stipulacea is one of the first Lessepsian migrants to colonize the Mediterranean Sea (in 1894) after the opening of the Suez Canal. Since then, it has progressively expanded its distribution westward across the basin. Here, we report for the first time the presence of H. stipulacea in Palma Bay (Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain), representing the westernmost known occurrence of the species in the Mediterranean Sea....

The dynamic balance between primary production and herbivory is key to the resilience of plant‐dominated ecosystems across the world. However, many vegetated ecosystems are becoming increasingly susceptible to herbivore‐triggered collapses, as this balance is disrupted due to predator declines, increasing nutrients, and other interacting impacts of global change. Yet without accessible, cost‐effective tools to evaluate the pro...

An unexpected meadow of the warm-water alga Penicillus capitatus was found thriving in sandy bottoms between 16 and 21 m depth in Mallorca, Balearic Islands. Plant densities and benthic coverage were very high when compared to most Mediterranean meadows of this species. As it is common in tropical meadows of this species, all the individuals were found in a Penicillus morphological state, whereas most Mediterranean individuals...

Seagrass meadows provide important ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, coastal protection from erosion, and sustained biodiversity and fisheries thereby improving the wellbeing and livelihoods of coastal communities. The erosion of millenary deposits of intertwined roots and rhizomes of Posidonia results in the formation of three-dimensional structures named escarpments that constitute a biogenic reef habitat. H...

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Global environmental change drives diversity loss and shifts in community structure. A key challenge is to better understand the impacts on ecosystem function and to connect species and trait diversity of assemblages with ecosystem properties that are in turn linked to ecosystem functioning. Here we quantify shifts in species composition and trait diversity associated with ocean acidification (OA) by using field measurements a...

Macroalgal forests characterised by species of the genus Cystoseira sensu lato form important shallow coastal rocky habitats in the Mediterranean Sea. These forests support a high biodiversity and provide important ecosystem services and societal benefits. Currently these habitats are often in a poor condition in many areas, due to loss and degradation from both anthropogenic and climate stressors. Restoration has recently mov...

Active restoration actions are becoming increasingly common for the recovery of degraded ecosystems. However, establishing when an ecosystem is fully restored is rarely achieved, since the recovery of entire communities needs long-term trajectories. The lack of evidence of success is even more severe in marine ecosystems, especially in the context of macroalgal forests, where beyond the vegetation structure and species diversi...

Coralline algae play important ecological roles throughout the photic zone of the world’s oceans. Recent studies have shown that attached-living coralline algae can contain records of past climate variability. So far, algal-based paleo-reconstructions are mainly available from mid- to high-latitudes, while in low latitude and temperate regions only few examples exist. Here, we investigate samples from the attached-living encru...

Against the accelerating pace of worldwide species extinction, reliable biodiversity assessments are critical, both as baselines and to track potential declines. DNA metabarcoding techniques allow for fast and comprehensive assessment of biodiversity in both terrestrial and marine habitats. However, these methods need to be adapted and standardised for each ecosystem in order to be effective. Seagrass meadows are among the mos...

Introduction Coastal detrital bottoms (CDB) are one of the most extensive habitats of the continental shelf worldwide, in the upper levels of the circalittoral zone. Hosting a diverse community structured by sediment grain size, trophic interactions and calcified organisms, CDB exhibit important ecological functions. In the Mediterranean Sea, CDB are constituted by recent elements partly provided by adjacent infralittoral and...

Ongoing human pressures over recent decades have caused the loss and ensuing impoverishment of the complexity and diversity of Mediterranean habitats dominated by algal species of the order Fucales. Gongolaria barbata, a habitat-forming Fucales species that has disappeared in several places across the Mediterranean, was reintroduced in a cove (Cala Teulera, Maó Bay, Menorca) where it was known to have been locally extinct for...

As invasive species spread, the ability of local communities to resist invasion depends on the strength of biotic interactions. Evolutionarily unused to the invader, native predators or herbivores may be initially wary of consuming newcomers, allowing them to proliferate. However, these relationships may be highly dynamic, and novel consumer–resource interactions could form as familiarity grows. Here, we explore the developmen...

The aim of the study is to describe the macrofaunal composition of marine soft bottom habitats on the Catalan coast between a depth of 3 and 35 meters, considering all groups of macroinvertebrates. The study also aims to compare our data with previous studies focused on the NW Mediterranean and to define the variables that drive assemblage composition. Depending on the species composition and the structure of the assemblages,...

Until the late 2010s the spiny fan-mussel Pinna rudis shared habitat in many Mediterranean sites with Mediterranean endemic Pinna nobilis, which dominated in abundance but that has gone locally extinct in most of its distribution area due to a recent widespread disease outbreak. In the Columbretes Islands Marine Reserve (NW Mediterranean) both species coexisted until 2017, when P. nobilis populations completely disappeared. In...

Invasive species pose a major threat to global diversity, and once they are well established their eradication typically becomes unfeasible. However, certain natural mechanisms can increase the resistance of native communities to invaders and can be used to guide effective management policies. Both competition and herbivory have been identified as potential biotic resistance mechanisms that can limit plant invasiveness, but it...