STABILO

The erosion of marine biodiversity has complex and poorly understood effects on the stability of ecosystems facing environmental changes. To adapt management measures and climate-change adaptation strategies, it is urgent to identify the compensatory dynamics that allow ecosystems to absorb new pressures (e.g., marine heatwaves), to detect early warning signals of their degradation, and to describe the processes that may limit their recovery.

Using macroalgal (kelp) forests as a study model, the STABILO project focuses on the spatio-temporal dynamics of their communities and relies on in situ observations and experiments conducted under contrasting biogeographic and environmental conditions (pristine, harvested, and port-influenced kelp forests).

This project will address several objectives, including:

• Experimentally determining how different components of community stability vary under contrasting biogeographic and environmental conditions (pristine, harvested and urban kelp forests),combining data on intraspecific, species, and functional diversity.
• Intercalibrating and testing the methodological relevance of a DNA-metabarcoding approach compared with a morphology-based approach for characterizing community diversity.
• Conducting a detailed inventory (flora and macrofauna) of the biodiversity associated with kelp forests of western Brittany.
• Contributing to the implementation of a kelp-forest observatory in different areas along the northern Breton coast (Iroise Marine Natural Park, Bay of Morlaix, and the Seven Islands Nature Reserve).

Supported by the OFB, the project relies on an extensive network of academic partners (Ifremer, CNRS, INRAE), and stakeholders such as Regional Committee for Maritime Fisheries, Marina, NGOs  (LPO, Bretagne Vivante) among other managers involved in the conservation and monitoring of coastal ecosystems at regional and national levels.