The Arabian Gulf: A Field Laboratory for Studying Marine Biocalcifier Resilience Under Natural and Anthropogenic Stress - Current Progress and Future Directions

Over the past 10,000 years since the last reemergence of marine systems from glacial conditions, the Arabian Gulf has become a well-known semi-restricted basin with no equal. Despite its importance as a present-day analogue for past geological environments and events, such as the Messinian Salinity Crisis and the rise and fall of the Dammam Sea during the Middle Eocene, there has been limited research development from academia, and these studies tend to be localized. The resilience of living marine organisms, particularly biocalcifiers, in the face of future climate change and global warming within this naturally stressed environment is also a major concern.

This work elaborates on the progress in understanding the impact of stressed environments on living biocalcifiers amid uncertainties in future climatic perturbations and human-induced problems. Various approaches have been used in the region, including thermal tolerance experiments, global warming predictions, and studies of human waste impacts (heavy-trace elements, microplastics, etc.). Several advancements have been made, such as experimenting with the thermal tolerance of intertidal and shallow-water benthic biocalcifiers, observing a “kill zone” linked to prolonged summer heat and desalination plant plumes, and studying the occurrence of microplastic waste in the soft tissues of selected biocalcifiers. To develop a comprehensive understanding and provide accurate proxies for past and future conditions, and to understand how marine biocalcifiers and their habitats in the Arabian Gulf change spatio-temporally, more work and collaboration are needed. As an academic institution in the region, we welcome future collaboration.