rilovg@ocean.org.il
Rilovlab.com
Tel: 04 – 8565261
Senior Scientist
Ph.D. 2000, Tel Aviv University, Israel
At IOLR since 2009
Research interests:
At IOLR I established the marine community ecology lab in 2009 and between 2016-2018 I headed the Marine Biology Department. I am also an Associate Professor in the Marine Biology Department at the Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa. I have been studying the ecology of coastal communities (coral reefs, rocky shores, deep reefs, and seagrass) for the past 30 years in many biogeographic regions (Mediterranean, Red Sea, Pacific, Atlantic, and Caribbean coasts). This includes ecological surveys and field and lab experiments on benthic-pelagic coupling (larval recruitment), species interactions, biodiversity, and more. I have over 120 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 6 book chapters, and I edited a Springer book on Marine Bioinvasions.
In the international arena, I received an EU Marie Curie grant, was a partner in 3 European Union-FP7 projects, was part of the core group of a COST-ACTION project, MARCONS, on marine conservation in European waters, was a PI on two joint Israel-Germany grant (BMBF) comparing climate change impacts in the Baltic and east Mediterranean seas, and I had a binational BSF-NSF grant with Northeastern University in the USA, for climate change research on rocky intertidal ecosystems. I am also one of the initiators and leaders of an EU HORIZON-2020 project, FutureMARES, that focused on the current and future impacts of climate change on marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services, as well as developing nature-based solutions to deal with these impacts. I am also a partner and task leader the new Horizon Europe, ACTNOW, focusing on the impact of cumulative stressors on the marine environment. I am also involved in several Biodiversa+ projects focused on improving and networking ecological monitoring methodologies.
My lab currently runs the national monitoring program on rocky shore biodiversity, and investigates the ecology and biodiversity of Mediterranean coastal communities, and the effects of bioinvasions, climate change (warming, acidification, sea level rise, and extreme events) and marine protected areas on these communities and their functions. I am trying to translate my findings and insights into actions regarding ecosystem services (with a special focus on Blue Carbon), nature-based-solutions, and marine conservation planning. My students also studied sea turtle ecology and conservation, shark populations in the eastern Mediterranean as well as seagrass ecology and mapping in the Red Sea. As part of the BALTMED and BIOMOD projects with GEOMAR (Kiel, Germany), my lab has constructed several innovative experimental installations (including large mesocosm facilities) to test the effects of warming and acidification on benthic species, communities and ecosystem functions, which is providing valuable insights on the impacts of climate change on Mediterranean ecological communities.
With regard to national and international assessments, in the past, I led the section on marine communities in Israel’s National Assessment of the health and services of ecological communities, and the invasive species chapter in the MedECC assessment report on the Mediterranean. Currently, I am a Lead Author in the writing of a new IPBES assessment on biodiversity monitoring methodologies.
Selected publications from the last five years:
Carlot J, Galobart C, Gómez-Gras D, Santamaría J, Golo R, Sini M, Cebrian E, Gerovasileiou V, Ponti M, Turicchia E, Comeau S, Rilov G, Tamburello L, Pulido Mantas T, Cerrano C, Ledoux JB, Gattuso JP, Ramirez-Calero S, Millán Agudo L, Montefalcone M, Katsanevakis S, Bensoussan N, Garrabou J, Teixidó N. Vulnerability of benthic trait diversity across the Mediterranean Sea following mass mortality events. Nature Communications. In press. Mulas M, Silverman J, Guy-Haim T, Noé S, Rilov G. (2022). High climate vulnerability of the Levantine endemic and endangered habitat-forming macroalga, Gongolaria rayssiae: implications for reef carbon. Frontiers in Marine Science. DOI:10.3389/fmars.2022.862332. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.862332/full.
Chest G, Villarino E, McLean M, Mieszkowska N, Benedetti-Cecchi L, Bulleri F, Ravaglioli C, Borja A, Muxika I, Fernandes-Salvador JA, Ibaibarriaga L, Uriate A, Revilla M, Villate F, Iriarte A, Uriarte I, Zervoudaki S, Carstensen J, Somerfield PJ, Queirós AM, McEvoy A, Auber A, Hidalgo M, Coll M, Garrabou J, Gómez-Gras D, Ramírez F, Margarit N, Lepage M, Dambrine C, Lobry J, Peck M, de la Barra P, van Leeuwen A, Rilov G, Yeruham E, Brind’Amour A, Lindegren M. (2024). Cross-basin and cross-taxa patterns of marine community tropicalization and deborealization in warming European seas. Nature Communication. 15, 2126. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46526-y
Bommarito C, Noè S, Díaz-Morales MD, Lukić I, Hiebenthal C, Rilov G, Sures B, Guy-Haim T, Wahl M. (2024). Co-occurrence of native and invasive macroalgae might be facilitated under global warming. Science of the Total Environment. 912, 169087. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169087
Rilov G, Canning-Clode J, Guy-Haim T, (2023). Ecological impacts of invasive ecosystem engineers: a global perspective across terrestrial and aquatic systems. Functional Ecology https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14406
Rilov G, Klein L, Iluz D, Dubinsky Z, Guy-Haim T (2022). Last snail standing? Superior thermal resilience of an alien tropical intertidal gastropod over natives in an ocean-warming hotspot. Biological Invasions. DOI: 10.1007/s10530-022-02871-x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114370.
Fraschetti S, 29 co-authors, Rilov G, Borja A (2022). An integrated assessment of the Good Environmental Status of Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas. Journal of Environmental Management https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114370.
Amsalem E, Rilov G (2021). High thermal plasticity, and vulnerability, in extreme environments at the warm distributional edge: the case of a tidepool shrimp. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 545: 151641. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2021.151641.
Bevilacqua S, Airoldi, Ballesteros E, Benedetti-Cecchi L, Boero F, Bulleri F, Cebrian E, Cerrano C, Claudet J, Colloca F, Coppari M, Di Franco A, Fraschetti S, Garrabou J, Guarnieri G, Guerranti C, Guidetti P, Halpern BS, Katsanevakis S, Mangano MC, Micheli1 F, Milazzo M, Pusceddu A, Renzi M, Rilov G, Sarà G, Terlizzi Antonio (2021). Mediterranean rocky reefs in the Anthropocene: present status and future concerns. Advances in Marine Biology. 89: 1-51. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.amb.2021.08.001.
Albano PG, Steger J, Bošnjak M, Dunne B, Guifarro Z, Turapova E, Hua Q, Kaufman DS, Rilov G, Zuschin M. (2021) Native biodiversity collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2469.
Rilov G, Peleg O, Guy-Haim T, Yeruham E. (2020). Community dynamics and ecological shifts on Mediterranean vermetid reefs. Marine Environmental Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2020.105045
Gamliel I, Garval T, Guy-Haim T, Willette D, Rilov G, Belmaker J (2020). Incorporating physiology into species distribution models moderates the projected impact of warming on Mediterranean marine species. Ecography 43(7):1090-1106. DOI: 10.1111/ecog.04423
Rilov G, Mazaris AD., Stelzenmüller V, Helmuth B, Wahl M, Guy-Haim T, Mieszkowska N, Ledoux JB, Katsanevakis S (2019). Adaptive marine conservation planning in the face of climate change: What can we learn from physiological, ecological and genetic studies? Global Ecology and Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00566.
