Institut de Ciències del Mar, Scientific Spanish Council (ICM-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain.
PLoS One. 2010 Aug 2;5(8):e11842. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011842.
The Mediterranean Sea is a marine biodiversity hot spot. Here we combined an extensive literature analysis with expert opinions to update publicly available estimates of major taxa in this marine ecosystem and to revise and update several species lists. We also assessed overall spatial and temporal patterns of species diversity and identified major changes and threats. Our results listed approximately 17,000 marine species occurring in the Mediterranean Sea. However, our estimates of marine diversity are still incomplete as yet-undescribed species will be added in the future. Diversity for microbes is substantially underestimated, and the deep-sea areas and portions of the southern and eastern region are still poorly known. In addition, the invasion of alien species is a crucial factor that will continue to change the biodiversity of the Mediterranean, mainly in its eastern basin that can spread rapidly northwards and westwards due to the warming of the Mediterranean Sea. Spatial patterns showed a general decrease in biodiversity from northwestern to southeastern regions following a gradient of production, with some exceptions and caution due to gaps in our knowledge of the biota along the southern and eastern rims. Biodiversity was also generally higher in coastal areas and continental shelves, and decreases with depth. Temporal trends indicated that overexploitation and habitat loss have been the main human drivers of historical changes in biodiversity. At present, habitat loss and degradation, followed by fishing impacts, pollution, climate change, eutrophication, and the establishment of alien species are the most important threats and affect the greatest number of taxonomic groups. All these impacts are expected to grow in importance in the future, especially climate change and habitat degradation. The spatial identification of hot spots highlighted the ecological importance of most of the western Mediterranean shelves (and in particular, the Strait of Gibraltar and the adjacent Alboran Sea), western African coast, the Adriatic, and the Aegean Sea, which show high concentrations of endangered, threatened, or vulnerable species. The Levantine Basin, severely impacted by the invasion of species, is endangered as well. This abstract has been translated to other languages (File S1).
地中海是海洋生物多样性热点地区。在这里，我们结合广泛的文献分析和专家意见，更新了该海洋生态系统主要分类群的公开估计值，并修订和更新了几个物种列表。我们还评估了物种多样性的总体时空格局，确定了主要的变化和威胁。我们的结果列出了大约 17000 种生活在地中海的海洋物种。然而，我们对海洋多样性的估计仍然不完整，未来还会有未被描述的物种加入。微生物多样性被大大低估，深海区域以及南部和东部区域仍知之甚少。此外，外来物种的入侵是一个关键因素，它将继续改变地中海的生物多样性，主要是在地中海的东部盆地，由于地中海的变暖，这些物种可以迅速向北和向西传播。空间格局显示，生物多样性从西北向东南地区呈梯度递减，这与生产力梯度一致，但由于我们对南部和东部边缘生物群的了解存在空白，因此存在一些例外和谨慎。生物多样性在沿海地区和大陆架上也通常较高，并随深度的增加而减少。时间趋势表明，过度捕捞和生境丧失是生物多样性历史变化的主要人为驱动因素。目前，生境丧失和退化、其次是捕捞影响、污染、气候变化、富营养化和外来物种的建立是最重要的威胁，影响了最多的分类群。所有这些影响预计在未来将变得更加重要，特别是气候变化和生境退化。热点的空间识别突出了大多数西部地中海大陆架（特别是直布罗陀海峡和相邻的阿尔沃兰海）、西部非洲海岸、亚得里亚海和爱琴海的生态重要性，这些地区集中了濒危、受威胁或脆弱物种。受到物种入侵严重影响的黎凡特盆地也同样受到威胁。这份摘要已经被翻译成其他语言（文件 S1）。
