Poster De Conférence Année : 2022

Threatened seagrass beds in the French Antilles (Caribbean Sea): feedback from 15 years of regional monitoring in the framework of adaptive management

Résumé

Seagrass beds are very important ecosystems that still suffer from a lack of recognition despite their current worldwide decline under multiples pressures. In French Antilles (Caribbean Sea), a regional monitoring of benthic communities, including seagrass beds, was established in 2007 in four marine protected areas, across Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin (French part) and Saint-Barthélemy islands. Temporal changes in the morphological and structural characteristics of seagrass beds were assessed over a 15-year period of adaptive management. Long-term data provide information on occurrence of decline (both abrupt and gradual) in native seagrass species abundance (mainly Thalassia testudinum and Syringodium filiforme in some cases). These trends indicate a change in seagrass communities, historically dominated by the climactic species T. testudinum, in favour of opportunistic, colonising and invasive seagrasses. The associated benthic fauna data reveal significant heterogeneity between stations and across islands. At the stage of the project, we can analyse the effectiveness of the sampling strategy and discuss the potential improvement based on current management and conservation issues. This study also highlights the urgent need for better support of the seagrass beds management and implements concretes and adapted interventions to reverse loss and sustain their essential services. Finally, these monitoring actions would benefit from being integrated into broader regional and global approaches in order to increase cooperation between seagrass beds managers and scientists.

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Dates et versions

hal-05144701 , version 1 (04-07-2025)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-05144701 , version 1

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Fanny Kerninon, Amandine Vaslet, Christelle Batailler, Claire Bissery, Julien Chalifour, et al.. Threatened seagrass beds in the French Antilles (Caribbean Sea): feedback from 15 years of regional monitoring in the framework of adaptive management. World seagrass conference 2022, Aug 2022, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, France. ⟨hal-05144701⟩
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