Effects of naturally acidified seawater on seagrass calcerous epibionts -

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Home: USES: Disposal of Waste from Land: Responses: Approaches and policy steps: Integrated coastal management

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Integrated coastal management

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The principles of cross-sectoral involvement and administration involving all sectors and working across a range of scales are all parts of what is now regularly referred to as integrated coastal management (ICM). There are three broad approaches to ICM:

An integrated institutional mechanism, where one organisation is responsible for most, or all, aspects of coastal management. For example, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, in Australia, is responsible for a wide range of tasks including zoning activities on the Reef, formulating a plan for the area, running education programmes, and developing, interpreting and applying comprehensive research and monitoring programmes covering not just the Reef but the water catchments on the mainland that drain into the area. But it is limited in some ways. It does not manage fisheries on the Reef, and has no executive authority for managing the way land is used on the mainland - though it can influence it.

An institutionally co-ordinated approach, where one institution co-ordinates the plans and work of others. For example in the Chesapeake Bay Programme, in the United States, the federal Environmental Protection Agency co-ordinates other federal and state bodies. The programme aims at reducing pollution of the Bay by nutrients, and at recovering the abundance, diversity and productivity of its natural resources.

Institutional co-ordination achieved through consultation within a legislative framework. In Zanzibar, for example, the Ministry of Lands and the Environment has taken the lead in developing a holistic strategy for protecting the coasts. This is based on working closely with other ministries on partnerships with local communities and provides the framework for managing natural resources and other activities. Some Mediterranean countries, developed and developing, are also applying this type of ICM at a national, provincial or local level.

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Title

Effects of naturally acidified seawater on seagrass calcerous epibionts ( DOCUMENT )

Author(s) / Editor(s)

Sophie Martin, Riccardo Rodolfo-Metalpa, Emma Ransome, Sonia Rowley,and Jason Hall-Spencer

Description

Surface ocean pH is likely to decrease by up to 0.4 units by 2100 due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere. Short-term experiments have revealed that this degree of seawater acidification can alter calcification rates in certain planktonic and benthic organisms, although the effects recorded may be shock responses and the long-term ecological effects are unknown. Here, we show the response of calcareous seagrass epibionts to elevated CO2 partial pressure in aquaria and at a volcanic vent area where seagrass habitat has been exposed to high CO2 levels for decades. Coralline algae were the dominant contributors to calcium carbonate mass on seagrass blades at normal pH but were absent from the system at mean pH 7.7 and were dissolved in aquaria enriched with CO2. In the field, bryozoans were the only calcifiers present on seagrass blades at mean pH 7.7 where the total mass of epiphytic calcium carbonate was 90 per cent lower than that at pH 8.2. These findings suggest that ocean acidification may have dramatic effects on the diversity of seagrass habitats and lead to a shift in the biogeochemical cycling of both carbon and carbonate in coastal ecosystems dominated by seagrass beds.

Keywords

ACIDIFCATION;

CO2;

CARBONATE PRODUCTION;

CALCEROUS EPIBIONTS;

CAROLLINE ALGAE

Geography Keywords

EUROPE

Content Language(s)

English

File Location

1237198530353_Martin_etal2008.pdf