A regional assessment of cumulative impact mapping on Mediterranean coralligenous outcrops.

ABSTRACT: In the last decade, the 'Cumulative Pressure and Impact Assessment' (CPIA) approach emerged as a tool to map expected impacts on marine ecosystems. However, CPIA assumes a linear response of ecosystems to increasing level of cumulative pressure weighting sensitivity to different anthropogenic pressures through expert judgement. We applied CPIA to Mediterranean coralligenous outcrops over 1000 km of the Italian coastline. Extensive field surveys were conducted to assess the actual condition of coralligenous assemblages at varying levels of human pressure. As pressure increased, a clear shift from bioconstructors to turf-dominated assemblages was found. The linear model originally assumed for CPIA did not fit the actual relationship between expected cumulative impact versus assemblage degrad

SUBMITTER: Bevilacqua S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5789093 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature