As the first signs of summer appeared, the European RLS team returned to Melilla, a Spanish province geographically located in northern Africa, to complete its annual biodiversity surveys.
Since 2019, the team has been collecting biodiversity information from this area through the projects INBIOMAR I, II, III, and SERMARES, establishing a five-year temporal series. The common objective of all these projects is to maintain yearly monitoring of marine biodiversity in both protected and unprotected areas of Melilla. This is especially important since the Mediterranean Sea, and its marine life, are highly exposed to anthropogenic and climatic threats, such as the rising sea surface temperatures leading to more frequent heatwave events.
With invaluable support from the Club Ánfora de Actividades Subacuáticas de Melilla, along with boat skippers Juanjo, Domingo, Javi Díaz, and Javi Celio, and favourable weather conditions, the team successfully completed 28 transects along the unprotected coastline of Melilla and the Natura 2000 Special Area of Conservation Acantilados de Aguadú.
The seabed of Melilla is characterized by flat rocky patches covered with macroalgae, as well as rougher areas where dusky groupers (Epinephelus marginatus), mottled groupers (Mycteroperca rubra), African striped grunt (Parapristipoma octolineatum), and bastard grunts (Pomadasys incisus) can be spotted. Surprisingly, and for the second consecutive year, we have also recorded specimens of parrotfish (Sparisoma cretense) and Madeira rockfish (Scorpaena maderensis), which are more frequently seen in the Canary Islands. During the sampling trip, the team recorded 58 species of fish and 67 species of invertebrates, benefiting from an average visibility of 12 meters, which is excellent for this area.
These surveys wouldn’t have been possible without the financial support of the Cross-disciplinary Research Center in Environmental Technologies at the University of Santiago de Compostela.
Until next year!
