Journal article
Seagrass production around artificial reefs is resistant to human stressors
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Vol.290(2003)
26/07/2023
Metrics
40 Record Views
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites
Abstract
Primary production underpins most ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration and fisheries. Artificial reefs (ARs) are widely used for fisheries management. Research has shown that a mechanism by which ARs in seagrass beds can support fisheries and carbon sequestration is through increasing primary production via fertilization from aggregating fish excretion. Seagrass beds are heavily affected by anthropogenic nutrient input and fishing that reduces nutrient input by consumers. The effect of these stressors is difficult to predict because impacts of simultaneous stressors are typically non-additive. We used a long-term experiment to identify the mechanisms by which simultaneous impacts of sewage enrichment and fishing alter seagrass production around ARs across non-orthogonal gradients in human-dominated and relatively unimpacted regions in Haiti and The Bahamas. Merging trait-based measures of seagrass and seagrass ecosystem processes, we found that ARs consistently enhanced per capita seagrass production and maintained ecosystem-scale production despite drastic shifts in controls on production from human stressors. Importantly, we also show that coupled human stressors on seagrass production around ARs were additive, contrasting expectations. These findings are encouraging for conservation because they indicate that seagrass ecosystems are highly resistant to coupled human stressors and that ARs promote ecosystem services even in human-dominated ecosystems.
Details
- Title
- Seagrass production around artificial reefs is resistant to human stressors
- Creators
- Mona A. Andskog - Southern Cross UniversityCraig Layman (Author) - Wake Forest UniversityJacob E. Allgeier (Corresponding Author) - University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Vol.290(2003)
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Identifiers
- 991013132613702368
- Copyright
- © 2023 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article