Mariculture is a key component of Mediterranean coastal economies, providing sustainable food and ecosystem services, and alleviating fishing pressure on overexploited wild stocks, yet it is increasingly vulnerable to climate-driven environmental variability. Salinity and temperature variability are among the primary climate-driven stressors in coastal seas, and the Adriatic Sea is already experiencing rapid warming with unpredicted seasonal heats, salinisation and altered freshwater- and temperature-driven stratification that affects mariculture.

REANIMAR is an integrated, interdisciplinary project that will develop a novel mechanistic framework to test the resilience of bivalves to salinity-temperature variability in a well-characterised, spatio-temporally resolved mariculture system. Lim Bay, an important Adriatic mariculture area, combines recurrent natural gradients with co-occurring Mediterranean mussel, European flat oyster and non-native/biofouling species, and is used as a natural model system for semi-enclosed, freshwater-influenced and climate-sensitive coastal mariculture. REANIMAR will quantify how gradients and (un)favourable conditions shape bivalve performance, multi-level stress responses and biofouling pressure, and translate them into indicators, guidelines and mitigation tools for mariculture.

REANIMAR will (1) characterise horizontal and vertical salinity-temperature gradients, extremes and freshwater inputs using high-frequency environmental measurements and imaging-based larval sampling; (2) determine how specific salinity-temperature gradients affect bivalve physiological condition, biochemical and molecular stress status, nutritive composition and shell traits, and identify trait-specific tolerance ranges to salinity-temperature variability that govern shellfish performance; (3) quantify how gradients structure biofouling communities and non-indigenous species in mariculture; (4) correlate valve-gaping behaviour with (un)favourable environmental conditions and biomarker data to develop advanced operational early-warning tools; and (5) integrate all data into statistical and spatial models that map ecological thresholds and safe operating spaces, providing climate-resilient mariculture guidance for the evidence-based selection of locations, depths and management regimes. As a result, REANIMAR will deliver transferable concepts and tools to support resilient mariculture under dynamic climate scenarios in comparable coastal systems.