Abstract
Posidonia oceanica meadows are experiencing a progressive decline, and monitoring their status is crucial for the maintenance of these ecosystems. We performed a comparative analysis of bed density, total phenol content and protein expression pattern to assess the conservation status of Posidonia plants from the S. Marinella (Rome, Italy) meadow. The total phenol content was inversely related to maximum bed density, confirming the relationship between high phenol content and stressful conditions. In addition, protein expression pattern profiles showed that the number of differentially expressed proteins was dramatically reduced in the latest years compared to previous analyses. Our results support the usefulness of integrating solid descriptors, such as phenol content, with novel biochemical/molecular approaches in the monitoring of meadows.
Highlights
Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile seagrass forms meadows which are widely recognized as key ecosystems in coastal habitats of the Mediterranean Sea [1]
Many authors have reported a regression of P. oceanica meadows, primarily due to human-induced disturbances [2,3,4,5,6,7]; as a consequence, several traditional, biochemical and molecular descriptors have been developed and applied to obtaining an integrated picture of their response to disturbances [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]
Plant stress response and acclimation to stress are dynamic processes, mediated by profound changes in plant metabolism which are mirrored at the proteomic level [21]
Summary
Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile seagrass forms meadows which are widely recognized as key ecosystems in coastal habitats of the Mediterranean Sea [1]. The relationship between phenol content and disturbance has been previously observed in several Posidonia meadows exposed to different environmental pressures, e.g., turbidity and pollution [12,13,16], ocean acidification [17, 18], competition with invasive seaweed [19], and metal contamination [20]. The comparison of proteomic maps has been applied to several marine organisms to assess changes in protein profiles in response to different environmental conditions [22,23,24,25,26,27]. We previously observed a relationship between phenol content and protein expression patterns in P. oceanica rhizomes under different stress conditions [16]
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