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No way back: decadal lack of functional recovery of a coralligenous community in a warming Mediterranean
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DOI：10.1002/oik.11571.png)
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Abstract
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Anthropogenic disturbances are degrading nature at a rate that exceeds its capacity to recover. While considerable research has focused on understanding ecosystem impacts, recovery processes remain comparatively overlooked, particularly in marine ecosystems, where long-term data on how highly complex systems respond to disturbances are scarce. In this context, we provide decadal insights into recovery patterns in Mediterranean coralligenous assemblages by revisiting a site that had lost 60% of its benthic cover due to an extreme storm in 2008, and comparing it with a nearby, non-impacted reference site. Using a community trait-based approach, we evaluated whether, after 14 years, the storm-impacted site achieved functional recovery, defined as a return to pre-disturbance levels of trait diversity and dominance. Our results show an initial recovery during the first four years, driven by the intermediate recolonization of local species and nearing pre-storm values in terms of species size and longevity. However, a decade later, recovery has stagnated, resulting in a more autotrophic and less structurally complex community, with potential consequences for ecosystem functioning. Notably, both the storm-impacted and reference sites exhibited a similar shift in trait dominance, accompanied by an increase in functional divergence, suggesting that marine heatwaves and global warming are reshaping community structure. These changes may be altering the recovery trajectory of the storm-impacted site and exacerbating its recovery debt. Overall, our findings provide new insights into how coralligenous assemblages may respond to acute extreme events in the current context of climate change, while highlighting the role of ongoing global pressures in deepening the functional deficits of recovering systems.
Keywords:
coralligenous assemblages
extreme storm
functional recovery
marine heatwaves
recovery debt
trait-based approach
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