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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Many thanks to all my co-authors, particularly my PhD supervisors @cristinalinares.bsky.social and Joaquim Garrabou for their support and trust in moving this work forward. Without them, and without the many people involved in the long-term monitoring effort, this unique dataset would not exist.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

So, can protection help? Yes, but only to a point. Highly protected populations maintained higher biomass overall, but protection alone could not prevent climate-driven decline. Protecting shallow red gorgonian forests ultimately requires both effective local conservation and global climate action.

Effects of exposure and protection on temporal trends in biomass. (a) Posterior prediction showing the relationship between biomass and time, stratified by exposure level (min and max observed values) and grouped by protection status. All variables are standardized. The thick line represents the model's median predicted trend, while the thinner lines show 300 individual draws from the posterior distribution. Raw data points are overlaid to indicate variance and sampling cover. (b) Posterior distribution of the main model parameters, including Time, Protection, Exposure and their interactions. Protection contrasts highly and lightly protected, with categories based on the MPA guide framework. (c) Posterior distribution of the counterfactual percentage increase in biomass under high protection relative to light protection. Negative values indicate a reduction in biomass under high protection, while positive values suggest an increase. Shaded areas represent the posterior distribution, with thick and thin lines indicating the 66% and 95% credible intervals, respectively. Points mark the posterior median.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The picture is worrying. 📉 We estimate a 34–54% loss of regional biomass over the last two decades. Increasing exposure to marine heatwaves was associated with progressively steeper biomass declines, and virtually all monitored populations showed signs of thermal stress.

Demographic decline of P. clavata across the north-western Mediterranean. (a) Injured Surface (% of colony surface with overgrowth or denuded axis); (b) Height (maximum colony height, cm); (c) Recruits (% of colonies < 5 cm); (d) Density (colonies m−2); and (e) Biomass (total colony biomass m−2, adjusted for mortality). The thick line shows the model's median shared trend across populations, with thinner lines representing 300 posterior draws. Raw data points are overlaid to indicate variance and sampling cover. (f) Regional biomass loss (the proportional difference between the first and last sampling dates). The black dot marks the posterior median, while the thick and thin black lines, along with the corresponding shaded areas of the distribution, represent the 66% and 95% credible intervals, respectively.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

We analysed 24 years of demographic monitoring across 49 shallow (<40 m) populations of Paramuricea clavata, including >50,000 individually measured colonies. This allowed us to track long-term population trajectories and examine how marine heatwave exposure and protection shaped biomass trends.

Location and conservation status of 49 Paramuricea clavata populations. (a) General study region. (b) The nine studied areas within the north-western Mediterranean. (c–k) Specific location of the sampled populations within each area. (l) Sampling timepoints for each population. The colour of the dots indicates the impact category at the time of sampling, based on the percentage of affected colonies (i.e., colonies with ≥ 10% injured surface, either denuded axis or epibiont overgrowth): Non-impacted (< 10%), low-impact (≥ 10% and < 30%), moderate-impact (≥ 30% and < 60%), and severe-impact (≥ 60%). (m) Mean JJASON sea surface temperature anomaly in the Mediterranean Sea, derived from E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information, illustrating the regional warming trend over the study period (dashed line marks a 0.5°C anomaly).

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Happy to share our new paper in Global Change Biology! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Can marine protected areas buffer red gorgonian populations against recurrent marine heatwaves? 👇

Two decades of monitoring across the north-western Mediterranean reveal a 45% regional biomass loss of the foundation gorgonian Paramuricea clavata, driven by increasingly frequent marine heatwaves. Protection sustained higher biomass but could not halt decline, underscoring the urgent need to pair conservation with climate action to preserve red gorgonian forests.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The picture is worrying. We estimate a **34–54% loss of regional biomass** over the last two decades. 📉 Increasing exposure to marine heatwaves was associated with progressively steeper biomass declines, and practically all monitored populations showed signs of thermal stress.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

We analysed 24 years of demographic monitoring across 49 shallow (<40 m) populations of *Paramuricea clavata*, including >50,000 individually measured colonies. This allowed us to track long-term population trajectories and examine how marine heatwave exposure and protection shaped biomass trends.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

🎉 New paper out in Oikos! 🪸 By revisiting a Mediterranean coralligenous assemblage 14 years after an extreme storm, we found that recovery unfolded against a shifting baseline, making it difficult to disentangle the legacy of the storm from the effects of a warming ocean. doi/10.1002/oik.11571

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Reposted by Yanis Zentner

MedRecover @medrecover.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

🌊¡No te pierdas el próximo taller online sobre la conservación del coralígeno en el Mediterráneo! 📅 24/04/2025 🕒 10h (CET) 📍 Acceso como bajo registro 📄 Agenda: docs.google.com/document/d/1... 🔗 Regístrate: docs.google.com/forms/d/11Xn... @icmcsic.bsky.social @ub.edu @irbio-ub.bsky.social

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Many thanks to my co-authors N. Margarit, @graciellarovira.bsky.social, @danigomezgras.bsky.social, and to my supervisors J. Garrabou and C. Linares for entrusting me with this long-term initiative! @medrecover.bsky.social @ub.edu @irbio-ub.bsky.social ICMCSIC

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Our study underscores the role of foundational species like the red coral in shaping their communities, making them key targets for conservation. It also highlights the need to work at ecologically and temporally relevant scales to assess recovery in restoration initatives.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

More importantly, the restored assemblage’s community structure shifted, resembling the reference site in both trait diversity and dominance. This wasn’t just driven by the red coral growth but also the arrival and increase of other species, mainly sponges and cnidarians.🪸

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Over the years, transplanted colonies survived and grew steadily! 📈However, both the reference and restored populations remain far from what a pristine red coral population should look like, a sad reality for many C. rubrum populations across the Mediterranean.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

A decade ago, over 300 Corallium rubrum colonies were restored, giving a second chance to illegally harvested red coral, provided by Catalan authorities. Now, we’ve combined population and trait-based approaches to assess not just survival, but long-term functional recovery.

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Yanis Zentner @yzentner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

🧵Can marine restoration lead to ecological recovery? 🌊Success is often assessed by short-term survival of transplants, but what about long-term changes in community (trait) composition? We studied this for a key Mediterranean octocoral. 👇 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Active restoration of a long-lived octocoral drives rapid functional recovery in a temperate reef

After a decade, a community with restored red coral nears the functional structure of natural ones.

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Reposted by Yanis Zentner

Daniel Gómez-Gras @danigomezgras.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Since 2016, the Coral Trait Database (www.coraltraits.org) has contributed to the advancement of coral reef science globally. However, data on #octocorals —key components of many coral ecosystems— was missing... until NOW. 🎉 The Octocoral Trait Database is here! 👇 rdcu.be/d6qpy

rdcu.be

The Octocoral Trait Database: a global database of trait information for octocoral species

Scientific Data - The Octocoral Trait Database: a global database of trait information for octocoral species

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