ISSN: 2577-4050
Authors: Genuario Belmonte*
Floating material (rafts) is present from the birth of oceans and comes from land (by means of rivers, glaciers, wind, and runoffs of any types), or is endogenous if derives from sea organisms and/or volcanic pumice. All the floating material is interested by colonization of benthic organisms. An additional distinction can be done on the basis of the organic composition, due to the fact that only organic rafts supply also food to rafters. This ancient interaction allowed the evolution of a recognizable rafters community, with some species recognized as obliged rafters. In the very recent geological period (the Antropocene, last 10,000 years) human activities in the Mediterranean area started to halter this already complex frame, and Italy (in the centre of the Mediterranean) has been used as a representation of the general phenomenon. In Italian Antropocene, extension of forests has been reduced, floating vehicles have been added to the sea surface, without following winds and/or currents, and raft material composition has been changed. In the last 100 years, hundreds of dam buildings are acting as logs and trees retainers, new material (plastic) has been added to the system, and climate changes (indirectly caused by human activities) are producing extreme phenomena with re-proposal of intense runoffs. What is asked is a more detailed perception of how much such changes are affecting the rafters communities, adapted to different materials, routes, and timing.
Keywords: Floating Materials; Supply-Side Ecology; Larvae; Coral Species; Paleoecology; Mediterranean Sea; Oceans
