| Summary: | Workshop sobre Reservas Marinas - Workshop on Marine Reserves (REMAR 2020), 1-3 July 2020, Barcelona.-- 2 pages Human-induced disturbances have dramatically increased during the last decades, causing strong impacts on marine species. The octocoral Corallium rubrum is one of the most endangered species in the Mediterranean. Climate change, with the critical increase in sea temperature and ocean acidification, in combination with poaching or illegal fishing, are the main threats for this species. One of the objectives of marine protected areas (MPAs) is to prevent poaching. However, there is a doubt if these MPAs are enough to ensure the conservation of red coral populations. In this project, red coral populations were monitored in 2019 inside the MPAs of Cap de Creus Natural Park and Illes Medes, Montgrí and Baix Ter Natural Park, to assess their conservation status and to compare them with the results obtained in 2017 in the same locations. We evaluated several demographic parameters such as population density, mortality, and recruitment. We also explored new analytical techniques and new sampling protocols to improve the efficiency and time consuming of these new tools, concretely exploring: the direct measure of height from the photos in comparison with the measures obtained from photogrammetric techniques and the cover of the colonies as a proxy of the biomass and structural complexity. Comparing with 2017, we found a significant decrease in coral size in the studied populations together with higher mortality rates in 2019. We believe that the observed coral colonies decline may be due to the illegal fishing registered by rural guards at marine protected area inside th eCap de Creus Natural Park Peer reviewed
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