Recruitment Disruption and the Role of Unaffected Populations for Potential Recovery After the Pinna nobilis Mass Mortality Event

Diego Kersting (1) , Maite Vázquez-Luis (2) , Baptiste Mourre (3) , Fatima Belkhamssa (4) , Elvira Álvarez (2) , Tatjana Bakran-Petricioli (5) , Carmen Barberá (6) , Agustín Barrajón (7) , Emilio Cortés (8) , Salud Deudero (2) , José García-March (9) , Salvatore Giacobbe (10) , Francisca Giménez-Casalduero (6) , Luis González (11) , Santiago Jiménez-Gutiérrez (12) , Silvija Kipson (5) , Javier Llorente (11) , Diego Moreno (7) , Patricia Prado (13) , Juan Pujol (14) , Jordi Sánchez (15) , Andrea Spinelli (16) , José Valencia (17) , Nardo Vicente (18, 19) , Iris Hendriks (20)

1 UB - Universitat de Barcelona
2 Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Málaga.
3 SOCIB Balearic Islands Coastal Ocean Observing and Forecasting System
4 Université Abdelhamid Ibn Badis de Mostaganem
5 University of Zagreb
6 Universitat d'Alacant
7 Agencia de Medio Ambiente y Agua de Andalucia
8 Universidad de Murcia
9 UCV - Universidad Catolica de Valencia
10 UniMe - Università degli Studi di Messina = University of Messina
11 Dirección General de Pesca Sostenible-Secretaría General de Pesca
12 Instituto de Ecología Litoral
13 IRTA - Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries = Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology
14 Environmental Department
15 Study and Conservation of the Marine Environment
16 Department of Biology Oceanographic
17 UIB - Universitat de les Illes Balears
18 IMBE - Institut méditerranéen de biodiversité et d'écologie marine et continentale
19 Institut Océanographique Paul Ricard
20 Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies

A devastating mass mortality event (MME) very likely caused by the protozoan Haplosporidium pinnae first detected in 2016 in the Western Mediterranean Sea, is pushing the endemic bivalve Pinna nobilis to near extinction. Populations recovery, if possible, will rely on larval dispersal from unaffected sites and potential recolonization through recruitment of resistant juveniles. To assess the impact of the MME on the species' larval recruitment, an unprecedented network of larval collector stations was implemented over several thousands of kilometers along the Western Mediterranean coasts during the 3 years after the onset of the MME. The findings of this network showed a generalized disruption in recruitment with dramatic consequences for the recovery of the species. However, there were exceptions to this pattern and recruits

Keywords: critically endangered; mass mortality; recruitment; larval connectivity; Mediterranean Sea; hydrodynamic model; Lagrangian trajectories; recovery

Domains: Environmental Sciences; Global Changes; Environmental Sciences; Biodiversity and Ecology

Diego Kersting, Maite Vázquez-Luis, Baptiste Mourre, Fatima Belkhamssa, Elvira Álvarez, et al.. Recruitment Disruption and the Role of Unaffected Populations for Potential Recovery After the Pinna nobilis Mass Mortality Event. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2020, 7, pp.1-18/594378. ⟨10.3389/fmars.2020.594378⟩. ⟨hal-02983801⟩