Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions

N., Vasco M.; Lobo-Arteaga, Jorge; Santos, Rafael; Leitão-Silva, David; Veronez, Arthur; Neves, Joana M.; Nogueira, Marta; Creed, Joel C.; Bertelli, Chiara; Samper-Villarreal, Jimena; S., Mats R.

doi:10.3389/fmars.2022.960249

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Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions

Vasco M. N. C. S. Vieira, Jorge Lobo-Arteaga, Rafael Santos, David Leitão-Silva, Arthur Veronez, Joana M. Neves, Marta Nogueira, Joel C. Creed, Chiara Bertelli

, Jimena Samper-Villarreal, Mats R. S. Pettersen

Frontiers in Marine Science, Volume: 9

Swansea University Author: Chiara Bertelli

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© 2022 Vieira, Lobo-Arteaga, Santos, Leitão-Silva, Veronez, Neves, Nogueira, Creed, Bertelli, Samper-Villarreal and Pettersen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY)
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DOI (Published version): 10.3389/fmars.2022.960249

Abstract

Seagrasses are declining globally, in large part due to increased anthropogenic coastal nutrient loads that enhance smothering by macroalgae, attenuate light, and are toxic when in excessive concentrations of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. However, as sanitation is improved many seagrass meadows...

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Published in:	Frontiers in Marine Science
ISSN:	2296-7745
Published:	Frontiers Media SA 2022
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However, as sanitation is improved many seagrass meadows have been observed to recover, with a few studies suggesting that they may even benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions. Monitoring seagrass demography and health has faced difficulties in establishing the adequate variables and metrics. Such uncertainty in the methods has caused uncertainty of the significance of results presented and compromised extrapolations to other seasons, areas, or species. One solution has come from within the plant self-thinning theories. During the 1980s, an interspecific boundary line (IBL) was determined as the upper limit of the combination of plant density and above-ground biomass for any stand on Earth, setting their maximum possible efficiency in space occupation. Recently, two meta-analyses to determine specific IBLs for algae and for seagrasses have been performed. The recently updated seagrass dataset comprises 5,052 observations from 78 studies on 18 species. These IBLs opened new perspectives for monitoring: the observed distance of a stand to the respective IBL (i.e., each stand’s relative efficiency of space occupation) was demonstrated to be a valuable indicator of a population’s health. Thus, this metric can be used to determine the impact of nutrients and pollutants on algae and seagrass populations. Furthermore, because the IBLs are common to all species, they may be used to compare all species from any location worldwide. This novel approach showed that Halodule wrightii, Halodule beaudettei, Halophila baillonii, Zostera marina, and Zostera noltei meadows benefit from anthropogenic additions of nitrogen and phosphorus, as long as these additions are moderate. In fact, the healthier Z. noltei meadows in Portugal (and among the healthiest meadows worldwide) were the ones exposed to effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) and a food factory. 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P., through project LA/P/0083/2020 (LA LARSyS - MARETEC) and project LA/P/0069/2020 granted to the Associate Laboratory ARNET. The present work was supported by the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre (MARE) which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UIDB/04292/ 2020) Joana M. Neves was supported by a PhD fellowship (UI/ BD/150954/2021) from FCT. This work was supported by Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (JCC, FAPERJ- E26/201.286/2014) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientı́fico e Tecnológico (JCC, CNPq- 307117/2014–6) and Santander Bank staff mobility funding through Swansea University, UK. 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spelling	2022-12-30T13:04:27.1674861 v2 62177 2022-12-15 Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions ef2a5aa98cae33d09caf7b77f6f16e71 0000-0002-9799-2522 Chiara Bertelli Chiara Bertelli true false 2022-12-15 SBI Seagrasses are declining globally, in large part due to increased anthropogenic coastal nutrient loads that enhance smothering by macroalgae, attenuate light, and are toxic when in excessive concentrations of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. However, as sanitation is improved many seagrass meadows have been observed to recover, with a few studies suggesting that they may even benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions. Monitoring seagrass demography and health has faced difficulties in establishing the adequate variables and metrics. Such uncertainty in the methods has caused uncertainty of the significance of results presented and compromised extrapolations to other seasons, areas, or species. One solution has come from within the plant self-thinning theories. During the 1980s, an interspecific boundary line (IBL) was determined as the upper limit of the combination of plant density and above-ground biomass for any stand on Earth, setting their maximum possible efficiency in space occupation. Recently, two meta-analyses to determine specific IBLs for algae and for seagrasses have been performed. The recently updated seagrass dataset comprises 5,052 observations from 78 studies on 18 species. These IBLs opened new perspectives for monitoring: the observed distance of a stand to the respective IBL (i.e., each stand’s relative efficiency of space occupation) was demonstrated to be a valuable indicator of a population’s health. Thus, this metric can be used to determine the impact of nutrients and pollutants on algae and seagrass populations. Furthermore, because the IBLs are common to all species, they may be used to compare all species from any location worldwide. This novel approach showed that Halodule wrightii, Halodule beaudettei, Halophila baillonii, Zostera marina, and Zostera noltei meadows benefit from anthropogenic additions of nitrogen and phosphorus, as long as these additions are moderate. In fact, the healthier Z. noltei meadows in Portugal (and among the healthiest meadows worldwide) were the ones exposed to effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) and a food factory. We conclude that those effluents are providing water with enough quality and that their optimal management should coordinate the technological solutions of the WWTP with the natural potential of seagrass meadows as water purifiers and biomass producers. Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science 9 Frontiers Media SA 2296-7745 seagrass, water quality, indicator, coastal, eutrophication, monitoring, mitigation, valuation 23 11 2022 2022-11-23 10.3389/fmars.2022.960249 COLLEGE NANME Biosciences COLLEGE CODE SBI Swansea University This work was funded by Portuguese National Funding through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I. P., through project LA/P/0083/2020 (LA LARSyS - MARETEC) and project LA/P/0069/2020 granted to the Associate Laboratory ARNET. The present work was supported by the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre (MARE) which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UIDB/04292/ 2020) Joana M. Neves was supported by a PhD fellowship (UI/ BD/150954/2021) from FCT. This work was supported by Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (JCC, FAPERJ- E26/201.286/2014) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientı́fico e Tecnológico (JCC, CNPq- 307117/2014–6) and Santander Bank staff mobility funding through Swansea University, UK. Studies in Costa Rica were funded by the Vicerrectorıa de ́ Investigación at the Universidad de Costa Rica. 2022-12-30T13:04:27.1674861 2022-12-15T14:51:54.2868455 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Vasco M. N. C. S. Vieira 1 Jorge Lobo-Arteaga 2 Rafael Santos 3 David Leitão-Silva 4 Arthur Veronez 5 Joana M. Neves 6 Marta Nogueira 7 Joel C. Creed 8 Chiara Bertelli 0000-0002-9799-2522 9 Jimena Samper-Villarreal 10 Mats R. S. Pettersen 11 62177__26089__d08c698022d741929903910a24c75492.pdf 62177.pdf 2022-12-15T14:55:37.2259468 Output 2615888 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2022 Vieira, Lobo-Arteaga, Santos, Leitão-Silva, Veronez, Neves, Nogueira, Creed, Bertelli, Samper-Villarreal and Pettersen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 148 true http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.32343.14240
title	Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions
spellingShingle	Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions Chiara Bertelli
title_short	Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions
title_full	Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions
title_fullStr	Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions
title_full_unstemmed	Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions
title_sort	Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions
author_id_str_mv	ef2a5aa98cae33d09caf7b77f6f16e71
author_id_fullname_str_mv	ef2a5aa98cae33d09caf7b77f6f16e71_***_Chiara Bertelli
author	Chiara Bertelli
author2	Vasco M. N. C. S. Vieira Jorge Lobo-Arteaga Rafael Santos David Leitão-Silva Arthur Veronez Joana M. Neves Marta Nogueira Joel C. Creed Chiara Bertelli Jimena Samper-Villarreal Mats R. S. Pettersen
format	Journal article
container_title	Frontiers in Marine Science
container_volume	9
publishDate	2022
institution	Swansea University
issn	2296-7745
doi_str_mv	10.3389/fmars.2022.960249
publisher	Frontiers Media SA
college_str	Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_title	Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id	facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title	Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str	School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
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description	Seagrasses are declining globally, in large part due to increased anthropogenic coastal nutrient loads that enhance smothering by macroalgae, attenuate light, and are toxic when in excessive concentrations of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. However, as sanitation is improved many seagrass meadows have been observed to recover, with a few studies suggesting that they may even benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions. Monitoring seagrass demography and health has faced difficulties in establishing the adequate variables and metrics. Such uncertainty in the methods has caused uncertainty of the significance of results presented and compromised extrapolations to other seasons, areas, or species. One solution has come from within the plant self-thinning theories. During the 1980s, an interspecific boundary line (IBL) was determined as the upper limit of the combination of plant density and above-ground biomass for any stand on Earth, setting their maximum possible efficiency in space occupation. Recently, two meta-analyses to determine specific IBLs for algae and for seagrasses have been performed. The recently updated seagrass dataset comprises 5,052 observations from 78 studies on 18 species. These IBLs opened new perspectives for monitoring: the observed distance of a stand to the respective IBL (i.e., each stand’s relative efficiency of space occupation) was demonstrated to be a valuable indicator of a population’s health. Thus, this metric can be used to determine the impact of nutrients and pollutants on algae and seagrass populations. Furthermore, because the IBLs are common to all species, they may be used to compare all species from any location worldwide. This novel approach showed that Halodule wrightii, Halodule beaudettei, Halophila baillonii, Zostera marina, and Zostera noltei meadows benefit from anthropogenic additions of nitrogen and phosphorus, as long as these additions are moderate. In fact, the healthier Z. noltei meadows in Portugal (and among the healthiest meadows worldwide) were the ones exposed to effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) and a food factory. We conclude that those effluents are providing water with enough quality and that their optimal management should coordinate the technological solutions of the WWTP with the natural potential of seagrass meadows as water purifiers and biomass producers.
published_date	2022-11-23T04:21:36Z
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Seagrasses benefit from mild anthropogenic nutrient additions

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