Abstract
Four chronologies of the bivalve species Glycymeris pilosa have been constructed along a 300 km gradient of the eastern coastal Adriatic Sea, all of which span the common period of 1982–2015. The chronologies are compared to local and remote environmental drivers suspected to influence the biology of the system, including air and seawater temperature, precipitation and freshwater discharge. The Adriatic-Ionian Bimodal Oscillating System (BiOS), a key oceanographic feature quantified by satellite-derived absolute dynamic topography, is also compared to the chronologies. The chronologies at the two southern sites are more strongly influenced by local river discharge, while the two northern chronologies are more strongly influenced by BiOS. These results highlight the broadscale importance of BiOS to the Adriatic system as well as the heterogeneity of nearshore environmental and drivers of growth. These G. pilosa chronologies provide unique multidecadal, continuous, biological time series to better understand the ecology and fine-scale variability of the Adriatic with potential for other shallow, semi-enclosed seas.
Highlights
Due to a lack of long-term instrumental records, proxies are necessary to establish historical ranges of environmental variability and provide context for assessing human influence on the climate system
The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from Meteorological and Hydrological Service of the Republic of Croatia, and Hydrometeorological Service of the Bosnia and Herzegovina
Growth increments were clearly visible in acetate peels of 20 shells from the Zivogosće sampling site, and 29 shells from the Drače sampling site
Summary
Due to a lack of long-term instrumental records, proxies are necessary to establish historical ranges of environmental variability and provide context for assessing human influence on the climate system. Tree rings are the archetypal example, and the current network of datasets publicly available through the International Tree-Ring Databank numbers more than 4,000. This network of chronologies has been used to assess long-term patterns of climate and disturbance in terrestrial settings at scales ranging from single stands to hemispheres [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The quality of data is comparable to that of treerings in that the same crossdating techniques can be applied to ensure that all increments have
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