The warming of the Mediterranean Sea has caused the population of sea urchins to collapse, literally decimated in recent decades
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himI sea urchins that once populated the waters of the Mediterranean are a risk of extinction due to the effects of the climate crisis.
A group of researchers had already thought about monitoring the population of sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) in 2015, carrying out a study in which the important collapse of specimens in our seas.
At the time, researchers had examined the impact of the Mediterranean temperature increase: in the last thirty years, in fact, the Mediterranean Sea has registered a temperature increase of 3 ° C.
This led to a high increased mortality of sea urchins, which risk disappearing in a short time.
Researchers have returned to curls in a new recent study in which they delved into reasons for the decimation of this species.
Through experiments in the field and in the laboratory, scientists evaluated hypotheses related to the water heating which could explain the collapse of the hedgehog population.
The rise in temperature, on the one hand affects food resources available to hedgehogs and on the other hand favors invasive species that compete with hedgehogs for these resources.
Sea urchins are in fact herbivores that feed on algae: these algae decrease due to the heating of the water, leaving the urchins without food.
To further reduce the already scarce food resources for hedgehogs, they also contribute fish which feed on the same algae as the rabbit fish which, due to the higher temperatures, invade the Mediterranean.
The curls thus become weaker, have greater difficulties in reproducing and developing: the reduced reproductive capacity considerably lowers the vitality of the population contributing - and perhaps leading - to the collapse recorded in the last two decades.
The forecasts for the future are by no means optimistic. The decline in the hedgehog population is expected to spread more and more in the Mediterranean following thefurther heating and the greater expansion of competing fish species.
How can we save the hedgehogs? According to the researchers, we should protect and increase the number of algae they eat e reduce significantly the factors that contribute to water heating.
Sources of reference: Nature / Esa Journal
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- Climate changes in the Mediterranean: they are more serious than previously thought. I study
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