Diversity of European seagrass indicators: patterns within and across regions

Marbà, Núria; Krause‐Jensen, Dorte; Alcoverro, Teresa; Birk, Sebastian; Pedersen, A.; Neto, João M.; Orfanidis, Sotiris; Garmendia, Joxe Mikel; Muxika, Iñigo; Borja, Ángel; Dencheva, Kristina; Duarte, Carlos M.

doi:10.1007/s10750-012-1403-7

Cited by 120 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Traditionally, several species of plants and animals have been and still are being used as indicator species for different types of pollution in monitoring programs (Borja et al, 2000(Borja et al, , 2008Ferrat et al, 2003;Montefalcone, 2009;Marbà et al, 2013). Likewise, plankton indicators have been proposed for diagnoses of ecosystem state (Beaugrand, 2005).…”

Section: Does Plankton Diversity Have Informative Potential For Envirmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Alternative High-Throughput Sequencing Methodologies for the Monitoring of Marine Picoplanktonic Biodiversity Based on rRNA Gene Amplicons

et al. 2016

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Sequencing of rRNA gene polymerase chain reaction amplicons (rRNA tags) is the most common approach for investigating microbial diversity. The recent development of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies has enabled the exploration of microbial biodiversity at an unprecedented scale, greatly expanding our knowledge on the microbiomes of marine ecosystems. These approaches provide accurate, fast, and cost efficient observations of the marine communities, and thus, may be suitable tools in biodiversity monitoring programs. To reach this goal, consistent and comparable methodologies must be used over time and within sites. Here, we have performed a cross-platform study of the two most common HTS methodologies, i.e., 454-pyrosequencing and Illumina tags to evaluate their usefulness in biodiversity monitoring and assessment of environmental status. Picoplankton biodiversity has been compared through both methodologies by sequencing the 16 and 18 S rRNA genes of a set of samples collected in the coast of Barcelona (NW Mediterranean). The results show that, despite differences observed in the rare OTUs retrieved, both platforms provide a comparable view of the marine picoplankton communities. On a taxonomic level, there was an accurate overlap in the detected phyla between the two methods and the overall estimates of alpha-and betadiversity were comparable. In addition, we explored the concept of "indicator species" and found that certain taxa (i.e., members of the Gammaproteobacteria among others) as well as the ratio between some phylogenetic groups (i.e., the ratio of Alphaproteobacteria/Gammaproteobacteria, Alteromonas/SAR11, and Alteromonas + Oceanospirillales/SAR11) have potential for being useful indicators of environmental status. The data show that implementing new protocols and identifying indicators of environmental status based on rRNA amplicon sequencing is feasible, and that is worth exploring whether the identified indices are universally applicable.

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Section: Does Plankton Diversity Have Informative Potential For Envirmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Alternative High-Throughput Sequencing Methodologies for the Monitoring of Marine Picoplanktonic Biodiversity Based on rRNA Gene Amplicons

et al. 2016

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“…Instead of using multi-parametric indexes developed as part of the European Water Framework Directive (i.e. ZONI, POMI, BIPO; KrauseJensen et al, 2005;Marbà et al, 2012;García-Marín et al, 2013;Mascaró et al, 2013) LAI standing was chosen as a proxy to evaluate a simple and common indicator such as cover in comparison with more theoretical concepts by using regrowth/recovery (critical slowing down) in the assessment of seagrass health and resilience (i.e. seagrass watch).…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cover versus recovery: Contrasting responses of two indicators in seagrass beds

Soissons

Han

et al. 2014

Marine Pollution Bulletin

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a b s t r a c tDespite being a highly valuable key-stone ecosystem, seagrass meadows are threatened and declining worldwide, creating urgent need for indicators of their health status. We compared two indicators for seagrass health: standing leaf area index versus relative recovery from local disturbance. Disturbance was created by removing aboveground biomass and recording the rate of regrowth for Zostera marina meadows exposed to contrasting wave regimes and nutrient stress levels.Within the experimental period, relative regrowth in gaps was around 50% in most plots, except for the ambient nutrient treatment at the sheltered site, where it exceeded 100%. The two indicators showed an opposite response to disturbance: the higher the standing leaf area index, the lower the relative recovery from disturbance. This conflicting response raises the question on the proper interpretation of such indicators to estimate seagrass health and resilience, and how to ideally monitor seagrass ecosystems in order to predict collapse.

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“…The main mechanisms controlling the seasonal growth of seagrasses are changes in light intensity and temperature (Dennison, 1987;Duarte, 1991;Marbà et al, 2012;Ochieng et al, 2010;Olesen and Sand-jensen, 1993). Generally, plants start to grow in spring, until mid-summer when they reach their maximum shoot density and cover to build up their carbon reserve that allows them to overwinter and regrow the next year (Madsen, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Resilience can be evaluated by looking at indicators of an ecosystem health status (for seagrasses, e.g. cover, or multi parametric indexes such as ZONI, POMI, BIPO; Krause-Jensen et al, 2005;Marbà et al, 2012;García-Marín et al, 2013;Mascaró et al, 2013) or more dynamic early warning signals that indicate a potential critical transition of the system to another stable state, such as "critical slowing down" (Dakos et al, 2011;Scheffer et al, 2009). Critical slowing down is defined as "a phenomenon that happens when a monitored stable variable of the system returns more slowly to equilibrium after a small perturbation" (Dakos et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding seagrass resilience in temperate systems: the importance of timing of the disturbance

Soissons

Han

et al. 2016

Ecological Indicators

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a b s t r a c tTemperate seagrass meadows form valuable ecosystems in coastal environments and present a distinct seasonal growth. They are threatened by an increasing amount of stressors, potentially affecting their capacity to recover from disturbances. We hypothesized that their resilience to disturbances is affected by seasonal dynamics. Hence, we investigated the effect of the timing of the disturbance on seagrass Leaf Area Index (as a proxy for presence, or 'visible' status), recovery from disturbance (as a proxy for meadow resilience), and rhizome carbohydrates (as a proxy for longer term resilience) by a series of four disturbance-recovery field experiments spread over the growing season at two sites in Shandong Province, China. During the course of the growing season, we found the highest recovery at the start of the growing season, lowest recovery when Leaf Area Index peaked around mid-growing season, and intermediate recovery when Leaf Area Index decreased at the end of the growing season. Rhizome carbohydrates were not affected by disturbances during any of the four experimental periods and could not explain the low recovery during mid-growing season. The two sites differed in exposure and in the occurrence of incidents like a green tide and storms, which affected recovery. However, general patterns were similar; timing strongly influenced the indicator of meadow resilience and its correlation with presence during the two main seagrass growth phases. Our results emphasize the importance of carefully considering timing in the evaluation of seagrass resilience in temperate systems. Furthermore, our study implies that, to effectively protect seagrass beds, conservation management should aim at avoiding disturbances particularly during the peak of the growing season, when resilience is lowest.

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Diversity of European seagrass indicators: patterns within and across regions

Cited by 120 publications

References 26 publications

Evaluation of Alternative High-Throughput Sequencing Methodologies for the Monitoring of Marine Picoplanktonic Biodiversity Based on rRNA Gene Amplicons

Evaluation of Alternative High-Throughput Sequencing Methodologies for the Monitoring of Marine Picoplanktonic Biodiversity Based on rRNA Gene Amplicons

Cover versus recovery: Contrasting responses of two indicators in seagrass beds

Understanding seagrass resilience in temperate systems: the importance of timing of the disturbance

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