Thebiodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea is “strongly threatened”due to overexploitation, loss of habitats, pollution, the arrival of invasive species and the increase in temperatures due to climate change, according to a study carried out by scientists from the Higher Center for Scientific Research (CSIC). According to researcher Marta Coll, “these threats will probably grow in the future, especially those associated with climate change and habitat degradation.”
The work, which is published in the magazinePlos One, is part ofMarine Life Census project, made up of a global network of researchers that seeks to characterize the biodiversity of the oceans, as well as its distribution and abundance, with 25 study areas. The Census researchers have produced a table in which different scores are assigned according to the degree of threat: the Mediterranean turns out to be the most threatened ecosystem, closely followed by the Gulf of Mexico and the continental shelf of China.
TheMediterraneanIt is also,the region with the highest number of invasive species, 637, approximately 4% of all that inhabit the area. Next on the list, the European area of the Atlantic Ocean, has 245. Researchers think that most of these species came from the Red Sea and entered the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
The work also shows that the Mediterranean isone of the seas with the most marine diversity on the planet. In fact, it is fourth on the list after Australian, Japanese and Chinese waters and has some17,000 marine speciesdescribed to date. It also has areas of high concentration of ecologically important species, such as the Strait of Gibraltar, the Alboran Sea, the Spanish Mediterranean and the associated African area, and the northern Adriatic and Aegean Seas. These regions also show a high concentration of endangered, threatened and vulnerable species.
