Taking the acid test: Mediterranean limpets face up to climate change

Impacts of climate change involve the interactions of multiple stressors on intertidal organisms, but rarely are the impacts of these stressors examined together. Many tests are also conducted in artificial, controlled laboratory conditions, without making use of natural opportunities to test performance of organisms under different environmental stressors. Given its small tidal range, the Mediterranean Sea provides such an opportunity, with a very fine scale environmental gradient and species living very close to each other over the tidal gradient. The vertical distribution of the limpets, Patella rustica and P. caerulea overlap in Palermo, Sicily, but despite this they have different ther…