RÉSUMÉ
Source : Circle-Med
"This project involves 5 partners, three from contributing countries, Italy, France and Spain (Galicia), and two from other Mediterranean countries, that will be considered as subcontractors, Albania and Tunisia, respectively from Italy and France. The duration of the project is of 24 months. All partners are Public entities with strong skills in the ambit of transitional water biodiversity researches. The project fits very well with the needs of CIRCLE topic 1 “Adaptation Strategies in the Water Sector and Coastal Zones”. Here, it is proposed a research project to address directly the relationships between community and ecosystems properties of Mediterranean lagoon ecosystems and those temperature and salinity changes, which are going to be the immediate effects of climate changes on the environmental niche of Mediterranean lagoon ecosystems.
The project has three main aims:
- to contribute to reinforce the theoretical background linking climate changes to community and ecosystem level responses in Mediterranean lagoons;
- to test the expected relationships with already existing data;
- to develop experimental protocols to evaluate the actual influence of climate changes on the Mediterranean lagoon ecology, in comparison with human activity induced changes.
The project is structured into three main actions, which reflects three main WPs. WP1 is Project coordination and management, the other WPs are:
- WP2 (Philosophy): Develop Dahlem-type workshops on the understanding of pure climate change influence on Mediterranean lagoon community and ecosystem ecology;
- WP3 (Organisation): Implement a Mediterranean data-base on the biodiversity of Mediterranean lagoons; particular attention will be given to phytoplankton and macrozoobenthos communities, fishery productivity and nursery areas changes;
- WP4 (Ecological Inference): Describe the existing relationships between temperature/salinity changes and structural and functional properties of Mediterranean lagoon ecosystems, using the space gradients as a proxy for the expected time gradient.WP3 and WP4 are supported by the conceptual models and scientific hypothesis developed as a result of WP2.Future exploitation of project results will be harmonization of biological indicators in transitional waters ecosystems, support in the implementation of Water Framework Directive and in ICZM at Mediterranean level."