Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 14, 2025

Author Spotlight: Advancing Coral Culture - Creating a Semi-Quantitatively Controlled Microenvironment System to Counter Current Limitations
Published on: July 21, 2023
The marine biodiversity impact of the Late Miocene Mediterranean salinity crisis
Konstantina Agiadi1, Niklas Hohmann2,3, Elsa Gliozzi4
1Department of Geology, University of Vienna, Josef-Holaubek-Platz 2, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Abstract:
Massive salt accumulations, or salt giants, have formed in highly restricted marine basins throughout geological history, but their impact on biodiversity has been only patchily studied. The salt giant in the Mediterranean Sea formed as a result of the restriction of its gateway to the Atlantic during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) 5.97 to 5.33 million years ago. Here, we quantify the biodiversity changes associated with the MSC based on a compilation of the Mediterranean fossil record. We conclude that 86 endemic species of the 2006 pre-MSC marine species survived the crisis, and that the present eastward-decreasing richness gradient in the Mediterranean was established after the MSC.
Related Concept Videos
What is Evolutionary History?
Threats to Biodiversity
Responses to Salt Stress
The Fossil Record
Keystone Species
Conservation of Declining Populations

