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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Coastal Ocean Processes
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1433104
This article is part of the Research Topic Processes, Mechanisms and Solutions in Coastal Wetland to Adapt to Changing Environment View all 6 articles

Assessment of the community status of seagrass bed and its relationship with environmental characteristics in Wenchang, Hainan Island, China

Provisionally accepted
Miao Fu Miao Fu Junyi Jiang Junyi Jiang *Dacheng Wang Dacheng Wang *Guowei Fu Guowei Fu *Yanwei Song Yanwei Song *Hongbing Wang Hongbing Wang Daheng Zhang Daheng Zhang *
  • Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    As one of the typical coastal ecosystems, seagrass bed has important ecological service functions. In order to enrich the basic data of multispecies tropical seagrass beds, the main controlling factors affecting the community status of seagrass were identified. In this study, the species, distribution and community characteristics of seagrass in Wenchang were investigated at five stations in 2023, and Spearman correlation analysis and Redundancy analysis were used to investigate the relationship between seagrass and environmental characteristics. The results showed that there were 7 species of seagrass belonging to 5 genera in 2 families along Wenchang coast, including Enhalus acoroides, Thalassia hemprichii, Cymodocea rotundata, Cymodocea serrulata, Halophila ovalis, Halophila minor and Halodule uninervis. The distribution of seagrass beds in Wenchang showed an obvious trend of degradation. Except for the relatively stable of seagrass beds in the central part of Wenchang, the seagrass beds on both the north and south sides decreased significantly, and the coverage of seagrass beds decreased from 24.31% in 2016 to 21.0% in 2020, and further decreased to 20.67% in 2023. The data showed that the coverage and aboveground biomass of seagrass were significantly positively correlated with temperature, and the density of seagrass was significantly positively correlated with DO, but significantly negatively correlated with COD. In addition, increased nutrient salts in the water column could negatively affect seagrass bed. In order to promote the sustainable development of seagrass ecosystem and enhance the stability of seagrass habitat, it is suggested to rationally plan the aquaculture scale of the surrounding area; flexibly manage the rake snail, rake clam and other fishing activities, appropriately reduce the frequency of mining; and scientifically plan marine engineering to reduce the damage to seagrass bed.

    Keywords: Seagrass beds, community characteristics, Environmental characteristics, Community status, Assessment index

    Received: 15 May 2024; Accepted: 12 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Fu, Jiang, Wang, Fu, Song, Wang and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Junyi Jiang, Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China
    Dacheng Wang, Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China
    Guowei Fu, Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China
    Yanwei Song, Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China
    Daheng Zhang, Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China

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