From being the sea of gods to the sea of used by humans, the Mediterranean sea seems huge as an ocean for Eurasian people while it seems just a little sea form other continents. Even though, it is famous for its turquoise waters, tourists ignore most of time that the sea is rich of a typical fauna and flora, and snorkeling is enough to discover the variety of habitats and their relative ecosystems.
The Mediterranean sea is atypical because of its hot waters in the south and temperate ones in the north, having therefore species specialized of the water types and species supporting wild range of variation. Moreover, the Mediterranean sea is easily considered as a closed sea but in reality, it is in connection with the cold Atlantic Ocean and the hot Red sea. These two connections allow some species to continuously penetrate it contributing to mix the species. Thus, a basic estimation of the amount of macroscopic marine species relatively to the world ocean (probably under-estimated) indicates that the Mediterranean sea have at least 6 % of the world ocean species while it represents only 0.32 % of the total world marine volume.
Locking specifically at the physical and chemical processes, the Mediterranean sea is similar as a little ocean. Its water circulated from and to the Gibraltar strait during some hundred years. One of its characteristics is to produce dense waters, as an evaporation basin, and dense waters have, then a direct influence also on the world ocean. Inside the basin, horizontal and vertical movements allow to enrich quite continuously its superficial water explaining its biological richness.
The complex relationship between the abiotic and biotic remains little understood, probably due to the constant natural variations of the ecosystem. However, the recent and constant human uses of the marine territory contribute to change both compartment directly or indirectly. For instance, the abiotic compartment is slowly modified by the global warming and this favours the migration of tropical species. The biotic compartment is also directly affected by fishing,pollution or by modification of the territory.
CIMA Foundation acting for conservation
CIMA Foundation is a main actor in environmental monitoring, thus it acts actively for the general understanding of its natural patrimony pursing dedicated research one the marine ecology. Associating physicians, oceanographers, engineers, ecologists and biologists, it aims to observe and model the marine ecosystem in order to predict in some way the global evolution.
More specifically, CIMA Foundation aims to provide integrated supports to decision-makers in order to manage natural risks or human-induced events. The integrated approach consists in describing the marine compartment using an ad-hoc bio-physical developed model (associating a biogeochemical model NPZD with the oceanographic model ROMS), using remote sensing data and realizing in field measurements.
Even though in field measurements are generally expensive, they are the only way to collect some data that are not monitored yet by our technologies. It is therefore the first priority to develop effective and optimize method to sample and to describe the environment. In the case of the marine ecosystem, an advised approach is to use key species. Species having a main role in the ecosystem are effective bioindicators. Thus, CIMA Foundation focalizes particular interests on cetacean monitoring. Cetaceans as top predators are linked to the trophic conditions and their presence indicates rich areas. Moreover, they also accumulate contaminants consuming their prey, allowing to estimate the ecosystem health. Considering these two aspects, CIMA Foundation analyzes the marine ecosystem functioning in order to conserve our patrimony.
