Dr Jose A. Sanabria-Fernandez1,2,3, Dr Natali Lazzari1,3,4
1University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2Sorbonne Université – iEES, Paris, France, 3University of Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain, 4National Center for Scientific Research, PSL Université Paris, CRIOBE, Paris, France
Resilience is an essential property of natural systems, responsible for keeping them healthy and far from collapse. Unfortunately, the resilience of marine communities is rapidly declining, being the anthropogenic pressures its principal driver of change. This loss of resilience leads the systems to approach the tipping point, the crossing of which could lead to a critical shift from healthy to unhealthy communities. A potential way to reduce resilience loss is to know where and how it might be preserved and enhanced by regulating anthropogenic pressures, yet, this lacks empirical evidence. To shed light on this gap of knowledge, this study aims (i) to quantify the resilience of temperate rocky reefs in five marine ecoregions of the world; (ii) to unveil the tipping points in resilience distribution; and (iii) to identify ways to improve resilience. By integrating seventeen factors of three dimensions, i.e., biological, management, and environmental, we uncovered the top and bottom thresholds of the resilience distribution. Then we unveiled 16 top resilience areas characterized by high resilience scores and 13 bottom resilience areas with discrete resilience scores. Top resilient areas are an inexcusable priority to be preserved with the most restrictive protection. Contrarily, bottom resilient areas are those where the regulation of anthropogenic pressures might enhance up to 38.84% of its resilience. In these areas, we found that prioritizing the management of some anthropogenic pressures over others is essential to improving resilience. We argue that a better understanding of anthropogenic pressure’s effects on resilience could help decision-makers to unveil priority areas for conserving and enhancing marine resilience.
Biography:
‘Biographies to come’
