Abstract
The objective of this study was to measure the communities associated with different seagrass species to predict how shifts in seagrass species composition may affect associated fauna. In the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, coverage of the historically dominant shoal grass (Halodule wrightii) is decreasing, while coverage of manatee grass (Syringodium filiforme) and turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) is increasing. We conducted a survey of fishes, crabs, and shrimp in monospecific beds of shoal, manatee, and turtle grass habitats of South Texas, USA to assess how changes in sea grass species composition would affect associated fauna. We measured seagrass parameters including shoot density, above ground biomass, epiphyte type, and epiphyte abundance to investigate relationships between faunal abundance and these seagrass parameters. We observed significant differences in communities among three seagrass species, even though these organisms are highly motile and could easily travel among the different seagrasses. Results showed species specific relationships among several different characteristics of the seagrass community and individual species abundance. More work is needed to discern the drivers of the complex relationships between individual seagrass species and their associated fauna.
Highlights
Coastal areas worldwide are experiencing loss of seagrass habitat, and this loss has been linked to human activities such as excessive nutrient inputs and overfishing [1,2,3,4]
In North Carolina USA, eel grass (Zostera marina) is being displaced by shoal grass (Halodule wrightii), and faunal diversity and abundance is significantly less in meadows dominated by shoal grass [5]
Redfish Bay contains extensive monospecific stands of shoal grass, manatee grass, and turtle grass that are found at similar depths (,0.5 m)
Summary
Coastal areas worldwide are experiencing loss of seagrass habitat, and this loss has been linked to human activities such as excessive nutrient inputs and overfishing [1,2,3,4]. Besides loss of seagrass habitat, seagrass species composition is changing in some areas, which may adversely affect faunal assemblages [5,6]. Seagrasses serve as nursery habitats, predation refuges, food resources, and surface for epiphyte attachment [9,10,11,12]. They are important to ecosystem dynamics by providing primary production, stabilizing sediments, and regulating hydrodynamic forces [13,14,15,16]. Changes in seagrass species composition as well as loss of seagrass habitat may result in a loss of these important functions
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