Conservation and restoration of marine forests in the Mediterranean Sea and the potential role of Marine Protected Areas

Abstract

Cystoseira species are some of the most important marine ecosystem-engineers, forming extended canopies comparable to land forests. Such forests are sensitive to human disturbances, like the decrease in water quality, the coastal development and the outbreak of herbivores. Conspicuous historical declines have been reported in many regions and several Cystoseira species are presently protected by European Union (EU) environmental policies. The aim of this work was to synthesize the conservation perspectives of Cystoseira forests in the Mediterranean Sea, focusing on the opportunities offered by artificial restoration and highlighting the potential role of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). MPAs give a better protection to healthy forests than non-managed sites and may be a source of propagules for natural recovery and/or for non-destructive artificial restoration of nearby damaged forests. MPAs lacking Cystoseira forests may also represent preferential sites for reforestation. We proposed a flow-chart for the conservation and a reasoned restoration of Cystoseira in the Mediterranean Sea. The successful conservation of Cystoseira forests is still possible, via raising public awareness on the role of Cystoseira and reducing human impacts on coastal ecosystems. Such actions have to be coupled with more specific large-scale management plans, encompassing restoration actions and enforcement of protection within MPAs.

Keywords:

• Cystoseira
• Fucales
• forests
• conservation
• restoration
• recovery
• human impacts
• Marine Protected Areas

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to give special thanks to Chiara Bonaviri, Filippo Ferrario, Marta Sales and Shimrit Perkol-Finkel for their precious inputs and comments at different stages of the paper. The authors also express many thanks to three anonymous reviewers for improving this manuscript with their comments.

Additional information

Funding

The work was realized within the framework of the project MMMPA-Training Network for Monitoring Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas, that has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) [grant number 290056] (ESR for Gianni F and ER for Bartolini F). This study was also partially supported by a grant (CIRCE program) from the Pôle Mer PACA, funded from Agence de l’Eau Rhône-Méditerranée-Corse and from the project CoCoNet [grant number 287844]. Airoldi, L. was supported by projects Theseus (EU - FP7 - ENV2009-1 [grant number 244104]), MERMAID (EU FP7 - Ocean - 2011 [grant number 288710]) and by a Fulbright Fellowship while writing the paper.