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Testing the robustness of a coastal biodiversity data protocol in the Mediterranean: insights from the molluskan assemblages from the sublittoral macroalgae communities

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Abstract

The NaGISA project (Natural Geography Ιn Shore Areas) is a global initiative within the framework of the Census of Marine Life. The Mediterranean Sea has joined with 4 stations, 2 in Italy and 2 on the island of Crete, Greece. Two different sites were sampled during two consecutive years (2007 and 2008) by means of SCUBA diving. On the basis of the evidence offered by the collected material from the hard substrates of Crete, and the literature mined datasets concerning the molluscan assemblages, two main issues are investigated: (a) is the molluscan fauna sampled in the two NaGISA sites representative of the regional Mediterranean one? and (b), is the molluscan fauna sampled from the two sites randomly assembled from the regional species pool across different spatial scales? Although a strong tendency of the local molluskan composition to be randomly sampled from the regional pools at all scales, it is not possible to demonstrate with a degree of certainty whether their observed local diversity is independent of local and regional processes or if it is determined by a combination of the two acting either in concert or antagonistically.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, N. Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton, 70013, Heraklion, Greece

    Dimitris Poursanidis

  2. Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology & Aquaculture, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Gournes Pediados, P.O. Box 2214, 71003, Crete, Greece

    Giorgos Chatzigeorgiou & Christos Arvanitidis

  3. Department of Marine Sciences, Faculty of Environment, University of the Aegean, Lesbos, Greece

    Dimitris Poursanidis, Charalampos Dimitriadis & Drosos Koutsoubas

  4. National Marine Park of Zakynthos, El. Venizelou 1, 29100, Zakynthos, Greece

    Charalampos Dimitriadis

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  1. Dimitris Poursanidis
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  2. Giorgos Chatzigeorgiou
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  3. Charalampos Dimitriadis
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  4. Drosos Koutsoubas
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  5. Christos Arvanitidis
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Correspondence to Dimitris Poursanidis.

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Poursanidis, D., Chatzigeorgiou, G., Dimitriadis, C. et al. Testing the robustness of a coastal biodiversity data protocol in the Mediterranean: insights from the molluskan assemblages from the sublittoral macroalgae communities. Hydrobiologia 826, 159–172 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-018-3725-6

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