Table 1.

The thermal tolerances of the studied species confronted to observations from MMEs linked to warming in the NW Mediterranean Sea and reported in the scientific literature (1979–2017)

Species	Phylum	Growth form	Upper thermal limit in aquaria (°C)	Resistance in aquaria	Degree of damage in MMEs (NW Mediterranean)
Agelas oroides	Poriferan	Massive	>29°C (21 days)	High	*
Cystodytes dellechiajei	Tunicate	Encrusting	>27°C (21 days)	High	No reported damage
Leptopsammia pruvoti	Cnidarian	Cup	28°C	High	No reported damage
Axinella damicornis	Poriferan	Massive	28°C	High	No reported damage
Axinella polypoides	Poriferan	Tree	27°C	Medium	No reported damage
Alcyonium acaule	Cnidarian	Tree	27°C	Medium	*
Crambe crambe	Poriferan	Encrusting	26°C	Low	***
Petrosia ficiformis	Poriferan	Massive	26°C	Low	***
Dysidea avara	Poriferan	Massive	26°C	Low	No reported damage
Parazoanthus axinellae	Cnidarian	Encrusting	27°C “slender”	Medium	***
			26°C “stocky”	Low

The species have been ordered from the most to the least resistant according to their upper thermal limits obtained in aquaria (considered here as the first temperature significantly reducing their probability of remaining healthy without necrosis throughout the experimental period). No reported damage indicates that a given species has not been reported as being affected in any MME, whereas (*) refers to species that have been reported as being affected only in one MME and (***) refers to species that have been affected in multiple MMEs (>5 years and/ or locations). See Supporting information & Table S2 for further detail and references.