Climate Change Monitoring Protocols

The effects of climate change and global warming are particularly alarming for the Mediterranean Sea, which is warming faster than the global oceans. The MPA-ADAPT project developed five standard protocols as a practical guide to track climate-related impacts in Mediterranean MPAs and beyond, following the requirements of the Ecosystem Approach and in the framework of the UNEP/MAP Barcelona Convention. The resulting outputs of the protocols provide key information to support mitigation strategies and effective adaptation plans in Mediterranean MPAs.

Technological infrastructure

Materials required to monitor temperature conditions:

1. Temperature data loggers HOBOTidbit v2 or HOBO-U22 and related software;

• a fastening kit (Colson rings, ankles Colson, putty for underwater sealing, plastic gloves, and bag);
• a tool to scratch the rock prior to attachment, and pliers or scissors for cutting.

2. Materials required to assess mass mortality events:

• a plastic board to collect data underwater;
• a diving computer to set the depth of the survey;
• a reference, such as a 50 x 50 cm quadrat, or a 50-cm bar.

3. Materials required for LEK-1 and LEK-2:

• printed copies of the questionnaire to do the interviews;
• a field guide or pictures of fish and other marine species, to assist in identifying the fish species;
• an Excel file for data collection.

4. Materials required for the fish visual census:

• a pre-printed board to collect data underwater;
• a diving computer to set the survey depth, measure transect time (5 minutes) and water temperature.

Training

• Video tutorials are available in the T-MEDNet Platform on how to deploy temperature data loggers for monitoring seawater temperature, and on how to conduct mortality surveys. A video tutorial for fish visual census is also available in the ISPRA and MPAADAPT YouTube channel.
• Temperature monitoring can be conducted by certified scuba divers, working in pairs. The mass mortality assessment and the fish census can also be performed by recreational divers with adequate training. For LEK-1 and LEK-2, interviewers should be practitioners skilled in species identification and with good knowledge of local fisheries.

Investment

The necessary material to implement the protocol is estimated to cost 1,800 Euro per MPA.

Concept

Five protocols have been developed to:

• Monitor temperature conditions – temperature is recorded every hour using data loggers deployed every 5 m from surface to a depth of 40 m, and recovered on an annual or semi-annual basis. The resulting data series can be used to build robust baselines and track hydrological changes to better understand the impacts that climate warming has on marine coastal biodiversity.
• Assess the impact of mass mortality on macrobenthic species dwelling in coastal waters. The aim of this protocol is to track the conservation status of macrobenthic species populations.
• Explore Local Ecological Knowledge to reconstruct historical changes (LEK-1) – this protocol can be used to interview experienced fishermen or other sea users, to gather information on historical changes in species abundances and distribution, and to detect new species early.
• Explore Local Ecological Knowledge for periodical monitoring (LEK-2) – this protocol can be used to interview experienced fishermen or other sea users, to regularly monitor climate-sensitive species of both native and exotic origin.
• Implement a fish visual census of climate change indicators – this protocol can be used to assess the abundance and distribution of specific fish species, chosen as reliable indicators of climate change in Mediterranean MPAs. Local species targets can be added by MPAs, based on local monitoring needs, ease of recognition, interaction with fisheries, increase/ decrease in the area, potential impacts on the © Brijuni National Park This tool is part of a Mediterranean Toolkit for Biodiversity Protection developed by the PANACeA partnership: environment/fisheries/human activities.

These protocols are inspired by the concept of Essential Climate Variables, and focus on a restricted set of simple measurements to capture greater aspects of environmental change. The indicators have been chosen on the basis of their scientific relevance, feasibility, and cost effectiveness.

Recommended implementation frequency

1. Monitoring temperature conditions: data loggers should be set up and retrieved every 6 months, generally before and after the warm season. A yearly periodicity can be adopted for remote sites.

2. Assessment and monitoring of mass mortality: mass mortality should be monitored every 12 months after summer, i.e. from mid-September to mid-October, or if mass mortality events are observed.

3. LEK-1: interviews can be done at any time of the year.

4. LEK-2: interviews should be done every 12 months; the respondents should ideally remain the same across time.

5. Fish visual census: the fish census should be performed every 12 months, between August and October; for recreational divers, the census can be performed at any time of the year.

To ensure the continuity of temperature data series, temperature data loggers should be launched with the correct parameters, prior to being placed again in the field, and solidly attached to the substrate to avoid losing them due to rough sea conditions.

Looking for small gorgonian colonies or specimens (less than 15 cm in height) may not be straightforward during the sampling; hence, they should not be taken into account. Fishermen may distrust researchers and practitioners; for this reason, special attention should be paid to the approach used during the interviews, e.g., by showing a genuine interest in the answers and behaving like a facilitator, not an expert.

Quantitative results

By implementing the proposed protocols, important physical and biological data can be collected, data that are necessary to understand climate change and seawater warming in the Mediterranean, and to support the drafting and implementation of adequate management strategies by Mediterranean T-MEDNET, Med-IAMER, AWI, and VLIZ, among others.

Transfer potential

The protocols can be shared, downloaded, and printed as needed by Mediterranean MPAs and for use in noncommercial products or services, provided that appropriate acknowledgment of the MPA-ADAPT project as the source and copyright holder is given.

• MPA-ADAPT has been used to set up new sites for seawater T monitoring, and resulted in over 2 million new T data points from around 30 sites declared by new users along the coasts of Provence, Corsica, Sardinia, as well as in the Tyrrhenian, and in the central and southern Adriatic Sea (http://t-mednet.org/t-sites/t-figures).

• The mass mortality monitoring protocols are currently being applied in several MPAs.

• The Fish Visual Census of climate change indicators has been applied in pilot actions with recreational divers, in collaboration with PADI (the largest recreational divers’ organisation), providing promising results. More than 200 censuses were conducted within the MPA-ADAPT project in the Portofino MPA and in the Isole Pelagie MPA.