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Victim of a pest identified in 2016 on the Spanish coast and whose expansion is favored by climate change, the bivalve mollusk Pinna nobilis, l & # 39; 39, one of the largest in the world, is dying.
From the surface, it is impossible to see the disaster. But in the depths, there is a field of empty molluscs piled up where they once stood erect, half stuck in the sand.
At his death, Pinna nobilis darkens, loses its flesh and its small natural hosts like shrimps and small crabs.
Olivier Jude, a Monegasque diver who takes underwater shots for his Phoctopus site, did not hide his surprise.
– "Alarming situation" –
His diving partner, Lidwine Courard, a member of the NaturDive badociation in Cannes, in the south of France, shares this concern. "The first deaths on the Costa Azul go back to October […] Some say it could mark the beginning of the extinction of other species."
Pinna nobilis is considered as an indicator of the quality of the Mediterranean coastline. "The situation is extremely alarming," said in a statement María del Mar Otero, specialist of the Center for Mediterranean Cooperation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
His map, periodically updated since the beginning of the crisis, is brimming with an increasing number of red dots corresponding to mbadive death rates greater than 85%. The Spanish coast of the Mediterranean is very affected, as are the Balearic Islands, southern Cyprus, part of the Turkish coast, Sicily and Greece.
"In Spain, this species is about to disappear and with the increase in water temperature in the coming months, we will see what will happen in areas not yet affected. , such as the Adriatic, "adds Otero.
It is not yet known how the tiny protozoan attacking Pinna nobilis, or how it is transmitted. This organism, which diffuses toxic spores, belongs to the family of the pathogen that decimated Californian ostriculture in 1957.
One of the hypotheses is that it arrived in the Mediterranean with the ballast of merchant ships.
For the marine biologist Nardo Vicente, "There are many germs, viruses, latent parasites in the environment in which they act" because of rising temperatures,
But Vicente keeps alive the l hope to find a solution to save this species. "The islets of Pinna nobilis will be preserved, which will reseed the rest of the Mediterranean," he said.
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