Login / Signup

The dawn of the tropical Atlantic invasion into the Mediterranean Sea.

Paolo G AlbanoLotta SchultzJohannes WesselyMarco TavianiStefan DullingerSilvia Danise
Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2024)
The Mediterranean Sea is a marine biodiversity hotspot already affected by climate-driven biodiversity collapses. Its highly endemic fauna is at further risk if global warming triggers an invasion of tropical Atlantic species. Here, we combine modern species occurrences with a unique paleorecord from the Last Interglacial (135 to 116 ka), a conservative analog of future climate, to model the future distribution of an exemplary subset of tropical West African mollusks, currently separated from the Mediterranean by cold upwelling off north-west Africa. We show that, already under an intermediate climate scenario (RCP 4.5) by 2050, climatic connectivity along north-west Africa may allow tropical species to colonize a by then largely environmentally suitable Mediterranean. The worst-case scenario RCP 8.5 leads to a fully tropicalized Mediterranean by 2100. The tropical Atlantic invasion will add to the ongoing Indo-Pacific invasion through the Suez Canal, irreversibly transforming the entire Mediterranean into a novel ecosystem unprecedented in human history.
Keyphrases
  • climate change
  • cell migration
  • human health
  • endothelial cells
  • multiple sclerosis
  • risk assessment
  • functional connectivity
  • induced pluripotent stem cells