van Tussenbroek BI et al. (2014), Caribbean-wide, long-term study of seagrass bed...

ECB-ART-43303

PLoS One 2014 Mar 03;93:e90600. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090600.

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Caribbean-wide, long-term study of seagrass beds reveals local variations, shifts in community structure and occasional collapse.

van Tussenbroek BI , Cortés J , Collin R , Fonseca AC , Gayle PM , Guzmán HM , Jácome GE , Juman R , Koltes KH , Oxenford HA , Rodríguez-Ramirez A , Samper-Villarreal J , Smith SR , Tschirky JJ , Weil E .

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The CARICOMP monitoring network gathered standardized data from 52 seagrass sampling stations at 22 sites (mostly Thalassia testudinum-dominated beds in reef systems) across the Wider Caribbean twice a year over the period 1993 to 2007 (and in some cases up to 2012). Wide variations in community total biomass (285 to >2000 g dry m(-2)) and annual foliar productivity of the dominant seagrass T. testudinum (<200 and >2000 g dry m(-2)) were found among sites. Solar-cycle related intra-annual variations in T. testudinum leaf productivity were detected at latitudes > 16°N. Hurricanes had little to no long-term effects on these well-developed seagrass communities, except for 1 station, where the vegetation was lost by burial below ∼1 m sand. At two sites (5 stations), the seagrass beds collapsed due to excessive grazing by turtles or sea-urchins (the latter in combination with human impact and storms). The low-cost methods of this regional-scale monitoring program were sufficient to detect long-term shifts in the communities, and fifteen (43%) out of 35 long-term monitoring stations (at 17 sites) showed trends in seagrass communities consistent with expected changes under environmental deterioration.

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Genes referenced: impact LOC100887844 LOC100893907

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	Figure 2. Annual leaf productivity of Thalassia testudinum per sampling station.The stations are grouped per site (underlined, 1–6 stations per site), and stations only sampled during one season are excluded. The boxes and vertical bars represent inter-annual variation. The horizontal lines correspond with the median values, 50% of the cases are within the box limits and the vertical bars indicate the smallest or largest values that are not outliers, • represent values more than 1.5 box lengths from lower/upper box limit, and * represent values more than 3 box-lengths from lower/upper box limit. The digits above the bars indicate N (the number of sampling years). Grey bars represent stations that were not included in the long-term analysis.
	Figure 3. Total (above- and below-ground) biomass of the principal components of the community per sampling station grouped per site.Other grass: species of seagrass other than Thalassia testudinum, mostly Syringodium filiforme. Somatic (decalcified) above-ground weight of the calcareous algae is considered. The boxes and bars represent inter-annual variation, and stations with only one sampling event are excluded. The digits above the bars in the bottom graph indicate N (the number of sampling years). M median of fleshy algae at site 5-station 13. See legend of Fig. 2 for further explanation.
	Figure 4. Deviations from general mean leaf productivity (ΔP) of Thalassia testudinum per station during High growth season (May-September at site 1 and 2, March –August at all other sites) and Low growth season (October-April at sites 1 and 2, September-February at all other sites).See Table S4 for significance differences of ΔP. Only stations with at least 10 sampling events were included. Numbers above the X-axis indicate site number, and the minor ticks indicate the different sampling stations at those sites.
	Figure 5. Significant long-term trends in seagrass attributes and community parameters at CARICOMP monitoring stations across the nine sites that showed changes consistent with deterioration of the environmental conditions.The broken smoothed lines connect annual average values and serve to illustrate the inter-annual variability in the data. Data from all samples per year (N = 4-9, Table S3) were used to determine the regression lines (Table S6). D. For Site14, the relationship was determined for the more persistent Syringodium filiforme.
	Figure 6. State of the long-term monitoring stations at the beginning (1993) and end (2007–2012) of the CARICOMP program.Pristine: Relatively undisturbed stations at the start of the program. Intermediate: Stations moderately disturbed by human-impact at the beginning of the program. Disturbed: Stations which had undergone chronic human-induced impacts before the initiation of the monitoring program.

References [+] :

Cortés, Monitoring coral reefs, seagrasses and mangroves in Costa Rica (CARICOMP). 2010, Pubmed, Echinobase