Warming driving Eastern Mediterranean species collapse: study

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Populations of marine molluscs have collapsed in recent decades in parts of the eastern Mediterranean as warming waters have made conditions unsuitable for native species, new research showed Wednesday.

Paolo Albano, from the University of Vienna's Department of Paleontology, initially set out to contrast populations of local and non-native species along the Israeli shelf in the eastern Mediterranean.

"My expectation was to find a Mediterranean ecosystem with these 'newcomers'," he told AFP. "However, after the first dive, I immediately realised that the problem was another one: the lack of the native Mediterranean species, even the most common ones that you would find everywhere in the Mediterranean."

"Tolerance to temperature is what really matters here and most of the native Mediterranean species are in the easternmost Mediterranean Sea at the limits of their tolerance to temperature," he said.

In contrast to local molluscs, populations of tropical species entering the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal were thriving.

Albano said the Eastern Mediterranean was "Paradigmatic of what is happening in marine ecosystems due to global warming: species respond to warming by shifting their ranges and in some areas this means local eradication of species."

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