Josep-Maria Gili

Spanish National Research Council | CSIC · Institute of Marine Sciences

Table 1 of paper with correct indentation of the first column.

Cold-Water Corals play a paramount role in marine benthic ecosystems, increasing their complexity and providing spawning and nursery habitats to many species. However, due to their sessile lifestyle and ramified shape they are commonly entangled in nets and even by-caught during the practice of bottom-contact fishing, which includes impacts from bo...

As offshore wind energy expands in Europe, maritime planners increasingly need to consider the potential effects of these activities on the different types of marine protected areas (MPAs), including Natura 2000 sites. The aim of this article is to critically review the initial development of offshore wind energy inside and/or in the vicinity of Me...

Despite the general belief that the Southern Ocean harbors low fish biodiversity, the Weddell Sea hosts one of the richest fish communities in the region. Parallelly, the Weddell Sea is also known for the presence of dense and diverse macrobenthos. Most macrobenthic invertebrates, such as gorgonians, sponges and bryozoans, are considered ecosystem...

Rhizostoma pulmo is a widely distributed scyphozoan in the Mediterranean Sea. Their stings result mainly in erythema, small vesicles, or/and pain, and cause a high number of bathers to seek assistance from first-aid services during the summer season. Despite the threat that jellyfish stings represent to public health, there is disagreement in the s...

This study investigates the role of winter oceanographic conditions on the horizontal and vertical spatial structure of Pyrosoma atlanticum at different ontogenetic stages. Data were obtained on two oceanographic cruises (February 2017 and 2018) in the NW Mediterranean. Small colonies were exceptionally abundant in 2017, linked to an earlier develo...

Pelagia noctiluca stings are common in Mediterranean coastal areas and, although the venom is non-lethal, they are painful. Due to its high toxicity and abundance, P. noctiluca is considered a target species for the focus of research on active ingredients to reduce the symptoms of its sting. To determine the effect of 31 substances and formulations...

Interest in the rearing of jellyfish has grown exponentially over recent years due to their indisputable potential in a wide variety of uses and research. Here, we describe the design and operation of an effective modified kreisel aquarium that allows to grow of the early planktonic life stages of jellyfish in both flow-through or closed systems. T...

The continental shelf and submarine canyon off Cap de Creus (NW Mediterranean) were declared a Site of Community Importance (SCI) within the Natura 2000 Network in 2014. Implementing an effective management plan to preserve its biological diversity and monitor its evolution through time requires a detailed characterization of its benthic ecosystem....

The "Gorgònia Barcelona" project was born in 2021 in Barcelona, one of the cities with more inhabitants of the Mediterranean, in collaboration with the Catalan Federation of Subaquatic Activities (FECDAS) and local social associations. This project counts with the support of the City Hall of Barcelona and the community of practices of biosciences &...

The scyphozoan Pelagia noctiluca has potential value for research and a wide variety of industrial applications. However, its holoplanktonic life cycle makes it difficult to maintain a permanent stock in aquaculture, unlike the continuous supply of newly-released ephyrae from jellyfish species with a benthic life stage. We investigated optimal feed...

The need for alternative energy systems like offshore wind power to move towards the Green Deal objectives is undeniable. However, it is also increasingly clear that biodiversity loss and climate change are interconnected issues that must be tackled in unison. In this paper we highlight that offshore wind farms (OWF) in the Mediterranean Sea (MS) p...

Anemonia viridis is an abundant and widely distributed temperate sea anemone that can form dense congregations of individuals. Despite the potential severity of its sting, few detailed cases have been reported. We report a case of a severe toxic reaction following an A. viridis sting in a 35-year-old oceanographer. She developed severe pain, itchin...

During the 20th and 21st centuries, the growing demand for marine resources by Mediterranean countries has led to a gradual increase in fishing pressure. As a result, both coastal and continental Mediterranean waters have suffered from the impacts of trawling and, to a lesser extent, of artisanal fishing with longlines, trammel nets and other minor...

Knowing and understanding the ocean’s influence on us and our influence on the ocean is the essence of ocean literacy. It aims to train people to become “ocean-literate”, i.e. to be aware of the ocean and therefore capable of making informed and responsible decisions on marine resources and the sustainability of the ocean and, by extension, that of...

Fishing is one of the human activities with the highest impact on seabeds. During the past hundred years it has gradually expanded to deeper waters, and almost all continental shelf and slopes worldwide have now been fished to some extent. In EU managed fishing grounds between 200 and 1000 m depth, it is estimated that bottom trawling has impacted...

Cold-water coral (CWC) gardens, mainly composed of gorgonians, soft corals and black corals, support a highly diversified associated mobile fauna, representing a key benthic habitat on the Mediterranean continental shelf. These communities are vulnerable to bottom-contact fishing gears, including trawling and small-scale fishing. In the frame of a...

The negative effects from recurrent industrial fishing are widespread in the Mediterranean Sea waters, being the conservation status of the benthic ecosystems especially critical in the Catalan continental margin (NW Mediterranean Sea), which is identified as a hotspot of ecological importance due to the high concentration of endangered, threatened...

Anemonia viridis is an abundant and widely-distributed temperate sea anemone that can form dense congregations of individuals. Despite the potential severity of its sting, few detailed cases have been reported. We report a case of a severe toxic reaction following an A. viridis sting in a 35-year-old oceanographer. She developed severe pain, itchin...

Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM). Appendix 1a. Prey capture under natural conditions of Octocorallia species. All temperate Alcyonaceans, except Alcyonium siderium, have been examined in the Mediterranean Sea Appendix 1b. Prey capture under natural conditions of Hexacorallia species.

Cold-water gorgonians dwelling on the continental shelf are a common by-catch of bottom-contact fishing practices. Given the slow growth and limited recruitment of cold-water gorgonians, the impact of fishing activities may seriously compromise the conservation of the highly complex coral gardens communities. For this reason, the development of eff...

Cold-water coral (CWC) habitats dwell on continental shelves, slopes, seamounts, and ridge systems around the world’s oceans from 50 to 4000 m depth, providing heterogeneous habitats which support a myriad of associated fauna. These highly diverse ecosystems are threatened by human stressors such as fishing activities, gas and oil exploitation, and...

En el curso académico 2020-2021 y en el marco del proyecto europeo “Responsible Research in Biosciences” (ResBios)1, el ICM ha comenzado a trabajar en la creación de su red de escuelas marinas, una red que une a diferentes actores preocupados e involucrados en la educación científica marina y permite compartir buenas prácticas. 1. RESponsible res...

Pelagia noctiluca is considered the most important jellyfish in the Mediterranean Sea, due to its abundance and the severity of its stings. Despite its importance in marine ecosystems and the health problems caused by its massive arrival in coastal areas, little is known about its early life stages and its cnidome has never been described. This stu...

A marine hazard is a potentially damaging event, phenomenon or activity in the marine environment that may cause loss of human life, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation. In the last 30 years, natural and human-induced hazards have caused over 1.6 million victims and the economic losses average 300 thousand million dollars pe...

The jellyfish species that inhabit the Mediterranean coastal waters are not lethal, but their stings can cause severe pain and systemic effects that pose a health risk to humans. Despite the frequent occurrence of jellyfish stings, currently no consensus exists among the scientific community regarding the most appropriate first-aid protocol. Over t...

The guide contains updated information of the most frequent species of jellyfish on the Spanish Mediterranean coasts. It also includes the first aid protocols in case of jellyfish stings. The information is highly informative.

Cold-water coral reefs (CWC) are known to be biodiversity hotspots, however, the sponge assemblages found to dwell within these habitats haven not been studied in depth to date in the Mediterranean Sea. The present article provides the first insight on the associated sponge fauna of the recently discovered CWC communities on the Catalan Margin and,...

Although the jellyfish species that inhabit the Mediterranean coastal waters are not lethal, their sting can cause severe pain and systemic effects that pose a health risk to humans. Despite the frequent occurrence of jellyfish stings, currently no consensus exists regarding the most appropriate first aid protocol among the scientific community. Ov...

The poster explains the experience of the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in the European project Responsible Research in Biosciences (ResBios). The project ResBios is aimed to put Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in practice in four institutions, the ICM-CSIC is one of them and is working mainly on 3 RRI aspects: scientific educat...

Pelagia noctiluca is the most common jellyfish in the Western Mediterranean Sea, living in oceanic waters with a holoplanktonic lifecycle. Frequent outbreaks have been well documented in coastal areas, yet little is known about their offshore distribution. In this study we address the relationship between oceanographic structures and the distributi...

Se presentan tres propuestas prácticas que permiten relacionar el cambio climático y el océano con el objetivo de mejorar la comprensión global de los procesos y cambios del planeta. Se pretende abrir nuevas oportunidades para trabajar de manera experimental conceptos oceanográficos relacionados con el cambio climático. https://www.grao.com/es/prod...

Mejorar el proceso de transferencia de conocimiento entre personal científico y profesorado es un reto pendiente para la educación científica, pero especialmente para la educación científica marina. La mejora de la cultura oceánica es uno de los grandes retos de los próximos años para la educación formal pero también para la sociedad general. El oc...

We analyzed litter occurrence in 68 underwater video transects performed on the middle/outer continental shelf and submarine canyon off Cap de Creus (NW Mediterranean), an area recently declared Site of Community Importance (SCI). Low densities of urban litter were registered on the shelf (7.2 items ha−1), increasing in abundance towards the deepes...

Benthic communities depend on receiving much of their food from the water column. While sinking, particles are transformed in a discontinuous process and are temporally retained in transitional physical structures, which act as boundaries and contribute to their further transformation. Motile organisms are well-acquainted with boundaries. The numbe...

RESUM L’any 2019 es commemoraren els 200 anys del naixement de Narcís Monturiol, enginyer i inventor,en tant que creador, del primer submarí tripulat de propulsió autònoma: l’Ictineu. Des d’ençà, els submarins tingueren i estan tenint un rol cada vegada més rellevant en la recerca científica marina. En aquest treball volem fer un reconeixement a l’...

Cold-water corals (CWC) are known to be deep-sea biodiversity hotspots, yet there is still a huge knowledge gap regarding their associated fauna. As so, CWC ecosystems pose as a perfect environment for the discovery of new species. In this context two new species of Hamigera (Demospongiae) have been recorded associated with CWC in antipodal parts o...

Gorgonians dwelling on the Mediterranean continental shelf are among the most frequent fishing bycatch taxa. These species display several traits, such as long lifespans and slow growth, which make them very vulnerable to the impacts caused by fishing activities with far‐reaching and long‐lasting effects. Hence, restoration and mitigation actions a...

En els darrers anys s’ha fet evident el paper primordial dels organismes marins sèssils en els processos de transferència d’energia en els ecosistemes litorals i de plataforma. Molts dels coneguts com a suspensívors bentònics empren com a font alimentària la «fracció fina» de la matèria en suspensió o microplàncton, i això podria ser important per...

The deep sea is considered the largest environment on Earth, providing multiple ecosystem services to human societies. Although its relevance has long been recognized, not enough attention and interest is generally given to it by society, and its study is almost non-existent in formal and informal education. Getting the deep sea closer to the gener...

Coral gardens are increasingly being reported at 40–200 m depth in the Mediterranean Sea. These coral assemblages are composed of gorgonians from shallow coastal rocky bottoms extending their distribution to deeper areas, as well as by gorgonians and black corals with distribution restricted to the continental shelf and upper slope. Gorgonians and...

In the Mediterranean Sea, many of the locations where cold-water coral communities have been reported and documented tend to be associated to submarine canyon environments. This contribution provides a summary of the Mediterranean canyons where, up to date, cold-water corals develop, describing the most common species, their water depth distributio...

Supplementary material 2. Size structure characteristics of the studied species (only transects were its presence is over 30 individuals). Morphometric parameters include: height, width, perimeter (when applicable), plus standard deviation (SD) and skewness and kourtosis.

Supplementary material 1. - Expanded transects information. Transects correspond numerically with those in Fig. 1.

• In the Mediterranean Sea, gorgonians are among the main habitat‐forming species of benthic communities on the continental shelf and slope, playing an important ecological role in coral gardens. • In areas where bottom trawling is restricted, gorgonians represent one of the main components of trammel net bycatch. Since gorgonians are long‐lived an...

Scleractinian cold-water coral (CWC) reefs are key habitats for benthic fauna as they enhance spatial heterogeneity and biodiversity. Understanding their environmental and ecological dynamics has therefore important implications for biodiversity conservation. This is especially true for the Mediterranean Sea, where living cold-water coral reefs are...

Nowadays, there is still a huge lack of knowledge regarding the morphology and size structure of sponge populations and their possible ecological implications. This study assesses, by means of quantitative analyses of video transects and morphometric analyses on still photographs, the geographical, bathymetrical and sizestructure distribution of th...

Gorgonians play an important structural and functional role promoting high diversity and biomass of associated fauna. Up to now, studies on gorgonian ecology in the Mediterranean Sea have been focused mainly on the SCUBA diving depth range. Although increased availability of remotely operated vehicles allowed access to the deeper areas, gorgonian a...

Two beaching events of the calycophoran siphonophore Abylopsis tetragona (Otto, 1823) were observed in two different areas of the Strait of Gibraltar during the cold season. The first was discovered on November 2014, on Getares Beach (Algeciras Bay, Mediterranean part of the Strait of Gibraltar), where more than 700 colonies were found deposited al...

This study examined the sexual reproductive cycle, energy storage and metabolic requirements of a Mediterranean gorgonian in a mesophotic ecosystem (~70 m depth). Paramuricea macrospina resulted to be a gonochoric internal brooding species with a 1:1 population sex ratio. Oogenesis lasted ~12–14 months, whereas spermatogenesis was significantly sho...

Fatty acid composition (% of total fatty acids) of Paramuricea macrospina colonies (N = 46) (mean ± SD). (PDF)

The study of pristine places is very important for learning about the state of the oceans before the impact of human beings. Because of the extreme environmental conditions of the Antarctic continental shelf – its distance from other continents, depth, and the weight of the continental ice – it offers us a great opportunity to better understand how...

This study investigates the possible pathways for Pelagia noctiluca intrusions over the shelf to understand the interactions between jellyfish and fish larvae. To assess how the presence of P. noctiluca may influence populations of Engraulis encrasicolus and Trachurus trachurus, we analyzed the effect of environmental conditions on the abundance an...

Exploration of the ocean is still one of the greatest challenges facing humankind. In the last decades our knowledge has increased considerably, thanks mainly to technological advances such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and manned underwater vehicles, as well as new acoustic techniques that allow us to see the sea floor on a computer screen...

La exploración del océano sigue siendo uno de los grandes retos de la humanidad. En las últimas décadas se ha avanzado mucho en su conocimiento, gracias sobre todo a adelantos tecnológicos como los vehículos operados remotamente (ROV) o los submarinos tripulados, además de técnicas acústicas que permiten visualizar el relieve del fondo marino en la...

In the present work, possible long-term changes in the planktonic cnidarian community were investigated by analyzing (1) species and community spatial distribution patterns, (2) variations in abundance and (3) changes in species richness during three mesoscale surveys representative of the climatic and anthropogenic changes that have occurred durin...

Knowing the variations of planktonic cnidarians under climate change conditions is of importance due to the key role of carnivorous gelatinous zooplankton in the pelagic ecosystem. We investigated the abundance, spatial distribution, species richness and community structure of planktonic cnidarians in a temperate area, the NW Mediterranean, during...

Predictive habitat mapping has shown great promise to improve the understanding of the spatial distribution and complexity of benthic habitats and is a valuable means to highlight species-environment relationships where field data are limited. Although spatial distribution models may represent an important step forward in science-based ecosystem ma...