TY - JOUR
T1 - Response of seagrass indicators to shifts in environmental stressors: A global review and management synthesis
AU - Roca, G.
AU - Alcoverro, T.
AU - Krause-Jensen, D.
AU - Balsby, T.J.S.
AU - van Katwijk, M.M.
AU - Marbà, N.
AU - Santos, R.
AU - Arthur, R.
AU - Mascaró, O.
AU - Fernández-Torquemada, Y.
AU - Pérez, M.
AU - Duarte, Carlos M.
AU - Romero, J.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: This work was funded by the COST action ES0906, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (projects CTM2010-22273-C02-01 and -02) and CSIC- 201330E062. GR was supported by a STSM of the COST Action and by a grant of Generalitat de Catalunya (Fi DGR-2012). DKJ and TJSB received funding from the European Commission (DEVOTES contract # FP-308392). This manuscript would not have seen its present form without the patient criticisms of several anonymous reviewers whose contributions we humbly acknowledge.
PY - 2016/1/1
Y1 - 2016/1/1
N2 - Although seagrass-based indicators are widely used to assess coastal ecosystem status, there is little universality in their application. Matching the plethora of available indicators to specific management objectives requires a detailed knowledge of their species-specific sensitivities and their response time to environmental stressors. We conducted an extensive survey of experimental studies to determine the sensitivity and response time of seagrass indicators to ecosystem degradation and recovery. We identified seagrass size and indicator type (i.e. level of biological organization of the measure) as the main factors affecting indicator sensitivity and response time to degradation and recovery. While structural and demographic parameters (e.g. shoot density, biomass) show a high and unspecific sensitivity, biochemical/physiological indicators present more stressor-specific responses and are the most sensitive detecting early phases of environmental improvement. Based on these results we present a simple decision tree to assist ecosystem managers to match adequate and reliable indicators to specific management goals. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AB - Although seagrass-based indicators are widely used to assess coastal ecosystem status, there is little universality in their application. Matching the plethora of available indicators to specific management objectives requires a detailed knowledge of their species-specific sensitivities and their response time to environmental stressors. We conducted an extensive survey of experimental studies to determine the sensitivity and response time of seagrass indicators to ecosystem degradation and recovery. We identified seagrass size and indicator type (i.e. level of biological organization of the measure) as the main factors affecting indicator sensitivity and response time to degradation and recovery. While structural and demographic parameters (e.g. shoot density, biomass) show a high and unspecific sensitivity, biochemical/physiological indicators present more stressor-specific responses and are the most sensitive detecting early phases of environmental improvement. Based on these results we present a simple decision tree to assist ecosystem managers to match adequate and reliable indicators to specific management goals. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/621780
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1470160X15007098
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84952361737&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.12.007
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.12.007
M3 - Article
SN - 1470-160X
VL - 63
SP - 310
EP - 323
JO - Ecological Indicators
JF - Ecological Indicators
ER -