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Fiorenza Micheli . et al. -- 17 páginas, 7 figuras, 3 tablas ; Spatial prioritization in conservation is required to direct limited resources to where actions are most urgently needed and most likely to produce effective conservation outcomes. In an effort to advance the protection of a highly threatened hotspot of marine biodiversity, the Mediterranean Sea, multiple spatial conservation plans have been developed in recent years. Here, we review and integrate these different plans with the goal of identifying priority conservation areas that represent the current consensus among the different initiatives. A review of six existing and twelve proposed conservation initiatives highlights gaps in conservation and management planning, particularly within the southern and eastern regions of the Mediterranean and for offshore and deep sea habitats. The eighteen initiatives vary substantially in their extent (covering 0.1–58.5% of the Mediterranean Sea) and in the location of additional proposed conservation and management areas. Differences in the criteria, approaches and data used explain such variation. Despite the diversity among proposals, our analyses identified ten areas, encompassing 10% of the Mediterranean Sea, that are consistently identified among the existing proposals, with an additional 10% selected by at least five proposals. These areas represent top priorities for immediate conservation action. Despite the plethora of initiatives, major challenges face Mediterranean biodiversity and conservation. These include the need for spatial prioritization within a comprehensive framework for regional conservation planning, the acquisition of additional information from data-poor areas, species or habitats, and addressing the challenges of establishing transboundary governance and collaboration in socially, culturally and politically complex conditions. Collective prioritised action, not new conservation plans, is needed for the north, western, and high seas of the Mediterranean, while developing initial information-based plans for the south and eastern Mediterranean is an urgent requirement for true regional conservation planning ; The workshop in which this work was initiated was funded by The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (www.ceed.edu.au). The Greek television channel SKAI (www.skai.gr/tv/) covered workshop participants' accommodation. The Biodiversity Research Group provided the workshop with consumables. FM acknowledges the support of the Pew Marine Trust and the Oak Foundation. SG was supported by the project "NETMED" cofinanced by the European Union and the Greek State. MC was funded through the Ramon y Cajal fellowship program of the Spanish Government. DK was funded through the MedPAN Network (www.medpan.org). SF was also supported by the European Community's 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 287844 for the project 'Towards COast to Coast NETworks of marine protected areas (from the shore to the high and deep sea), coupled with sea-based wind energy potential (COCONET)'. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript ; Peer reviewed

Este artículo contiene 9 páginas, 1 tabla, 4 figuras. ; The effects of environmental change on biodiversity are still poorly understood. In particular, the consequences of shifts in species composition for marine ecosystem function are largely unknown. Here we assess the loss of functional diversity, i.e. the range of species biological traits, in benthic marine communities exposed to ocean acidification (OA) by using natural CO2 vent systems. We found that functional richness is greatly reduced with acidification, and that functional loss is more pronounced than the corresponding decrease in taxonomic diversity. In acidified conditions, most organisms accounted for a few functional entities (i.e. unique combination of functional traits), resulting in low functional redundancy. These results suggest that functional richness is not buffered by functional redundancy under OA, even in highly diverse assemblages, such as rocky benthic communities. ; This research was supported by the National Geographic Society (Window to the Future, Grant No. 9771-15) and the Total Foundation (High CO2 Seas project, Grant No. BIO- 2016-081-4). N.T. was supported by a Maire Curie-Cofund (FP7-PEOPLE-Marie Curie Bandiera-Cofund, GA No. 600407) and by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (H2020- MSCA- IF- 2015, GA No. 702628). ; Peer reviewed

7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109134 ; The increasing consideration of gender balance in conservation science and practice has been reflected in the setting of global commitments. Yet, women remain under-represented in science and conservation decision-making. We compiled and analyzed data on the representation of women in hiring, publishing, funding, and leadership positions in European Union marine sciences and conservation. To explore scientists' perceptions of gender imbalance in marine sciences and conservation more broadly, we conducted a global survey and analyzed 764 questionnaires from 42 countries. Participants were also asked to identify measures that promote gender equity. We found a consistent pattern of women being under-representated across institutions and nations characterized by a relatively balanced representation of men and women in early career stages and a growing gap in later stages, with women occupying only 13% to 24% of senior positions. The same pattern was found in publishing, funding, and leadership of research institutes. Survey results demonstrate that most marine scientists are aware of the general and persistent gender bias, and perceive that it may compromise our ability to effectively solve conservation problems. Measures that increase fairness in evaluations (e.g. for hiring) and that support work-life balance ranked high, whereas gender-oriented measures, such as gender-specific scholarships, received less support. Our findings suggest that mechanisms promoting a fairer share of family responsibilities and transparent processes in hiring and evaluation are the most promising path to a more balanced participation of women in scientific leadership and conservation decision-making. Such measures may benefit not only women but diversity more generally ; This article/publication is based upon work from COST Action 15121 "MarCons: Advancing marine conservation in the European and contiguous seas", supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology; www.cost.eu). ; With the funding support of the 'Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence' accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI) ; Peer reviewed

In order to obtain robust and measurable data from the marine environment, citizen science projects need user-friendly tools that, during dives, autonomously gather information in an easy, low-cost and integrated way. Data collected from different devices and by different untrained divers must have good estimation of the position where the information has been acquired. With this goal, in the context of the Green Bubbles project, a novel platform, called DocuScooter has been designed and developed. DocuScooter implements all the algorithms to filter and merge data with correct timestamp and position preparing the complete mission report. After the mission, the diver can upload the report on an appropriate web service to produce a 3D documentation. In order to obtain the underwater position during the dive, a tailored device compatible with the platform is also presented. Result of the prototype of the platform and the first results of the position estimation algorithm are presented and discussed. ; This paper has received funding from the European Union (EU)'s H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 643712 to the project Green Bubbles RISE for sustainable diving (Green Bubbles). This paper reflects only the authors' view. The Research Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. © 2017 Panebianco et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.

The increasing consideration of gender balance in conservation science and practice has been reflected in the setting of global commitments. Yet, women remain under-represented in science and conservation decisionmaking. We compiled and analyzed data on the representation of women in hiring, publishing, funding, and leadership positions in European Union marine sciences and conservation. To explore scientists' perceptions of gender imbalance in marine sciences and conservation more broadly, we conducted a global survey and analyzed 764 questionnaires from 42 countries. Participants were also asked to identify measures that promote gender equity. We found a consistent pattern of women being under-representated across institutions and nations characterized by a relatively balanced representation of men and women in early career stages and a growing gap in later stages, with women occupying only 13% to 24% of senior positions. The same pattern was found in publishing, funding, and leadership of research institutes. Survey results demonstrate that most marine scientists are aware of the general and persistent gender bias, and perceive that it may compromise our ability to effectively solve conservation problems. Measures that increase fairness in evaluations (e.g. for hiring) and that support work-life balance ranked high, whereas gender-oriented measures, such as gender-specific scholarships, received less support. Our findings suggest that mechanisms promoting a fairer share of family responsibilities and transparent processes in hiring and evaluation are the most promising path to a more balanced participation of women in scientific leadership and conservation decision-making. Such measures may benefit not only women but diversity more generally.

International audience ; The Paris Agreement target of limiting global surface warming to 1.5–2∘C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2100 will still heavily impact the ocean. While ambitious mitigation and adaptation are both needed, the ocean provides major opportunities for action to reduce climate change globally and its impacts on vital ecosystems and ecosystem services. A comprehensive and systematic assessment of 13 global- and local-scale, ocean-based measures was performed to help steer the development and implementation of technologies and actions toward a sustainable outcome. We show that (1) all measures have tradeoffs and multiple criteria must be used for a comprehensive assessment of their potential, (2) greatest benefit is derived by combining global and local solutions, some of which could be implemented or scaled-up immediately, (3) some measures are too uncertain to be recommended yet, (4) political consistency must be achieved through effective cross-scale governance mechanisms, (5) scientific effort must focus on effectiveness, co-benefits, disbenefits, and costs of poorly tested as well as new and emerging measures.

International audience ; The Paris Agreement target of limiting global surface warming to 1.5–2∘C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2100 will still heavily impact the ocean. While ambitious mitigation and adaptation are both needed, the ocean provides major opportunities for action to reduce climate change globally and its impacts on vital ecosystems and ecosystem services. A comprehensive and systematic assessment of 13 global- and local-scale, ocean-based measures was performed to help steer the development and implementation of technologies and actions toward a sustainable outcome. We show that (1) all measures have tradeoffs and multiple criteria must be used for a comprehensive assessment of their potential, (2) greatest benefit is derived by combining global and local solutions, some of which could be implemented or scaled-up immediately, (3) some measures are too uncertain to be recommended yet, (4) political consistency must be achieved through effective cross-scale governance mechanisms, (5) scientific effort must focus on effectiveness, co-benefits, disbenefits, and costs of poorly tested as well as new and emerging measures.

International audience ; The Paris Agreement target of limiting global surface warming to 1.5–2∘C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2100 will still heavily impact the ocean. While ambitious mitigation and adaptation are both needed, the ocean provides major opportunities for action to reduce climate change globally and its impacts on vital ecosystems and ecosystem services. A comprehensive and systematic assessment of 13 global- and local-scale, ocean-based measures was performed to help steer the development and implementation of technologies and actions toward a sustainable outcome. We show that (1) all measures have tradeoffs and multiple criteria must be used for a comprehensive assessment of their potential, (2) greatest benefit is derived by combining global and local solutions, some of which could be implemented or scaled-up immediately, (3) some measures are too uncertain to be recommended yet, (4) political consistency must be achieved through effective cross-scale governance mechanisms, (5) scientific effort must focus on effectiveness, co-benefits, disbenefits, and costs of poorly tested as well as new and emerging measures.

International audience ; The Paris Agreement target of limiting global surface warming to 1.5–2∘C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2100 will still heavily impact the ocean. While ambitious mitigation and adaptation are both needed, the ocean provides major opportunities for action to reduce climate change globally and its impacts on vital ecosystems and ecosystem services. A comprehensive and systematic assessment of 13 global- and local-scale, ocean-based measures was performed to help steer the development and implementation of technologies and actions toward a sustainable outcome. We show that (1) all measures have tradeoffs and multiple criteria must be used for a comprehensive assessment of their potential, (2) greatest benefit is derived by combining global and local solutions, some of which could be implemented or scaled-up immediately, (3) some measures are too uncertain to be recommended yet, (4) political consistency must be achieved through effective cross-scale governance mechanisms, (5) scientific effort must focus on effectiveness, co-benefits, disbenefits, and costs of poorly tested as well as new and emerging measures.