Alejandro Bernal-Ibáñez

MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente · Canning-Clode Marine Lab (MARE Madeira)

Objective 1 (O1) – Patterns. Which is the present ecological status of macroalgal forest from the human impacted coast of Madeira Archipelago? Objective 2 (O2) – Processes. Is this status naturally occurring or is it a degraded status consequence of human threats? Which are the main factors involved in determining the present conservation status? Which are the principal human threats operating here: local vs. global stressors? Objective 3 (O3) – Actions and Restoration. How can we promote or manipulate resident macroalgal communities, through biotic and abiotic interventions, to provide enough input for restoring the ecological degraded coastal systems?

Underwater macroalgal forests are among the most important ecosystems in our oceans. Their fronds and branches create a rich canopy, which harbors a diversity of species that are critical to nearshore trophic networks. Additionally, macroalgal forests offer a wide range of goods and services to populations living on the coast. They help ensure high water quality, provide refuge to species of commercial interest and are an important tourist attraction for divers, to list just a few of their critical functions. Macroalgal forests face a growing threat and we may be losing them at a rapid rate. One of the reasons for this loss is overgrazing effect by sea urchin herbivores. Normally, sea urchins would be naturally controlled by predatory fish, but with rampant overfishing, populations of sea urchins can grow to outbreak proportions allowing them to completely overgraze underwater forests. In addition, some areas (such as the Eastern Mediterranean) have suffered major losses of macroalgal forests because of herbivorous fish that enter through the Suez Canal. To add to these threats, other factors, like heat waves (that are increasing with climate change) can also cause dramatic collapses of these precious underwater forests. As a result, areas that were once abundant macroalgal forests are being rapidly replaced by underwater deserts – barrens – dominated by overgrazed rocks rather than macroalgae. These alternate habitats are very poor, low productive ecosystems with very little biodiversity. A group of researchers from different institutions have joint efforts to study the collapse of the underwater macroalgal forests and the expansion of barrens. In particular, we are interested in understanding what characterises these new barrens in order to isolate the factors that determine their creation. We also believe that monitoring already existing deserts is essential to prevent and predict the creation of new barrens along the coastline and will help us evaluate the possibilities of recovering lost underwater forests. For this reason, we launched a citizen science project within the www.seawatchers.org platform to discover the barrens worldwide. We need help in identifying new barrens to monitor. Barrens are areas where the bare rock is completely clean of all erect algal cover and is typically covered over with encrusting algae. How big these bare areas are, depends on the pressure the ecosystem receives but it normally ranges in sizes from several square meters to large expansions of hundreds of square meters. If you spot a barren, you can make a valuable contribution to this study, and to the conservation of macroalgal forests. All we need is information on the position of the barren (its GPS coordinates), the depth at which you saw it, and a photograph. If you see sea urchins or fish around the barren, please note them down, because it is very relevant information. Sea urchins and other herbivores are key species in generating and maintaining underwater deserts. www.observadoresdelmar.es for more information