Marine landscape has a deep, yet relatively unexplored, influence on ecosystem functions. We, ecologists, often transmit the biased impression that a given square meter of an underwater habitat (say, for example, of a seagrass meadow) follows exactly the same functional pattern, irrespectively of its context. Landscape ecology tells us that how a square meter of a given habitat works largely depends on how it is embedded in the mosaic of habitat patches in the sea bottom. In other words: ecological processes within a given habitat will depend on which are the habitat neighbors. In this complex scenario, herbivory plays an important role in population dynamics, composition, distribution, production and biodiversity of seagrass meadows.
As a part of a large collaborative
research project (“ECOMOS: The influence of landscape mosaics in mediating
functional interactions in marine ecosystems: an experimental approach”), we examined herbivory in Cymodocea nodosa meadows, and compared the herbivory rates in
different contexts, such as meadow edges, frontiers (between Cymodocea nodosa and Posidonia oceanica meadows, between
meadows and rocky reefs) and central areas of large meadows. The study was conducted
in the bay of Fornells in Minorca Island (Balearic Archipelago) in June 2014.
It was a hard underwater work to
mark and measure hundreds of the thin C.
nodosa leaves, which was eased by the outstanding beauty of the island and
its underwater landscapes. Hope that this effort will render nice results in
the next future…
Landscape and herbivory. Field work
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