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Sustained functioning of ecosystems is predicted to depend upon the maintenance of their biodiversity, structure and integrity. The large consensus achieved in this regard, however, faces to the objective difficulty of finding appropriate metrics to measure ecosystem functioning. Here, we aim at evaluating functional consequence of the phase shift occurring in meadows of the Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica , a priority habitat that is undergoing regression in many coastal areas due to multiple human pressures. Structural degradation of the P. oceanica ecosystem, consequent to increasing coastal exploitation and climate change, may result in the progressive replacement of this seagrass by opportunistic macrophytes, either native or alien. Reviewing published information and our personal records, we measured changes in biological habitat provisioning, species richness and biomass associated to each of the alternative states characterizing the phase shift. Then, ecosystem functioning was assessed by computing the exergy associated to each state, exergy being a state variable that measures the ecosystem capacity to produce work. Phase shift was consistently shown to imply loss in habitat provision, species richness, and biomass; structural and compositional loss was parallelled by a reduction of exergy content, thus providing for the first time an objective and integrative measure of the loss of ecosystem functioning following the degradation of healthy seagrass meadows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Posidonia oceanica, the most important and abundant seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea, forms large meadows from the sea surface down to 40 m. The depth of the lower limit of the meadows marks the boundary between the infralittoral and the circalittoral zone, and is said to be normally set by light attenuation underwater, while the role of water movement has been little explored. In this paper, the position (i.e. distance from the shoreline and depth) of P. oceanica meadow lower limits along the whole Ligurian coastline (about 350 km) was related to the annual storm wave base. This depth represents the limit of interaction between waves and seafloor and corresponds to L 0/2, where L 0 is the annual offshore wave length. In all meadows, the lower limit has never been found deeper than the annual storm wave base, and its depth (Zc ) showed related to L0 according to the equation Zc  = 0.32∙L 0 + 5.62. In the coastal tracts affected by the least intense waves, the reduction of water movement with depth represents the most important constraint to the seaward development of the meadow, whereas light availability plays a major role in meadows affected by the most intense waves. The present study represents the first attempt at understanding the role of hydrodynamic factors in setting the depth limit of seagrass meadows. If corroborated by future research at other sites, this will have important implications for both basic and applied science, as it would imply rethinking about the relative importance of water movement and light in seagrass depth distribution, and could allow for a better estimate of the extent of meadow regression in anthropized areas. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: While coastal management activities have long been known to exert a strong influence on the health of marine ecosystems, neither scientists nor administrators have realized that small interventions may lead to disproportionately larger impacts. This study investigated the broad and long-lasting environmental consequences of the construction of an ill-planned, although small (only 12 m long) jetty for pleasure crafts on the hydrodynamic conditions and on the meadow of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica of an embayed cove in the Ligurian Sea (NW Mediterranean). There, P. oceanica used to develop on a high (>1.5 m) matte (a lignified terrace causing seafloor elevation) in which the leaves reach the surface and form a compact natural barrier to waves in front of the beach. Such a so-called ‘fringing reef’ of P. oceanica is today recognized of high ecological value and specific conservation efforts are required. The construction of the jetty implied the cutting of the matte, which directly destroyed part of the fringing reef. In addition, meadow mapping and sedimentological analyses coupled with morphodynamic modelling showed that the ecosystem of the whole cove had been greatly altered by the jetty. We used the geometric planform approach, a proper tool in the study of headland-controlled embayment, both to characterise the present situation of Prelo cove and to simulate the original one, before the jetty was built. In the long term, such a small jetty completely altered the configuration and the hydrodynamic conditions of the whole cove, splitting the original pocket beach into two smaller ones and creating strong rip-currents flowing seaward along the jetty. These rip-currents enhanced erosion of residual shallow portions of the meadow and further modified the sedimentary fluxes in shallow waters. A century after the construction of the jetty, an irreversible environmental damage has occurred, as the slow growing rate of P. oceanica implies that the high matte terrace and the fringing reef will hardly form again, even after the removal of the jetty. The lesson learnt from this study is that even such small, and therefore reputed intrinsically ‘innocent’, interventions on the coastal zone require accurate planning based on interdisciplinary studies to understand and respect the delicate interplay among morphological, hydrodynamic and ecological components. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Habitat fragmentation in meadows of Posidonia oceanica, the most important and abundant seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea, was investigated at a region-wide spatial scale using a synthetic ecological index, the Patchiness Index (PI). We tested the hypothesis that human impacts are the major factor responsible for habitat fragmentation in P. oceanica meadows contrasting fragmentation of meadows located in “anthropized” areas with that of meadows located in areas with low anthropization and considered as virtually “natural”. We also related fragmentation of meadow with the morphodynamic state of the submerged beach (i.e. distinctive types of beach produced by the topography, the wave climate and the sediment composition) in order to investigate the influence of one natural component on the seagrass meadow seascape. Results demonstrated that fragmentation in the P. oceanica meadows is strongly influenced by the human component, being lower in natural meadows than in anthropized ones, and that it is little influenced by the morphodynamic state of the coast. The use of landscape approaches to discriminate natural disturbance from human impacts that affect seagrass meadows is thus recommended for the proper management of coastal zones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]