Threats to seagrasses and ecosystem resilience

[Extract] Seagrasses are a key marine habitat that has been globally declining since the 1930s (Orth et al. 2006), with the most recent census estimating that 7 per cent of seagrass is being lost worldwide per year, which is equivalent to a football field of seagrass every 30 minutes (Waycott et al. 2009). Seagrass meadows are threatened by natural and anthropogenic stressors attributed to a variety of physical factors (for example, increased temperatures, salinity changes, hypoxia, extreme weather events, sedimentation and altered wave and current dynamics) and biological factors (for example, invasive species, algal blooms, eutrophication, altered grazing patterns, competition and disease) (Short and Wyllie-Echeverria 1996). These impacts are magnified throughout the ecosystem because seagrasses engineer their environment and provide a foundation for entire communities. Global losses of seagrass cover have major implications for humans due to the numerous ecosystem services they provide.

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978-92-807-3780-6

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