Subproject 子项目 6

Subproject   子项目   6

Response of seagrasses to aquaculture effluents and the filtering capacity of seagrass meadows for anthropogenic nutrients and organic matter.

Participating scientists

PD Dr. Tim Jennerjahn (ZMT), Dr. Lucia Herbeck (ZMT), Esther Thomsen (ZMT), Dr. Daoru Wang (HAOFS), Prof. Jianfang Chen (SIO), Prof. Aimin Wang (Hainan University)

Project description

The effect of human activities can be a severe threat to seagrass meadows which are among the ecological and economically most important coastal ecosystems of the tropics, but still hardly investigated. The major goal of this subproject is to assess how various seagrass species respond to increased inputs of land-derived substances and if seagrass meadows as a whole can serve as a sink for anthropogenic nutrients and pollutants and hence as a buffer for coral reefs.


Information to our field campaign

What have we done in Hainan during our field work?

• Determination of seagrass abundance and density
• Determination of seagrass leaf sizes
• Sampling of seagrass aboveground biomass
• Sampling of sediments
• Sampling of seagrass, epiphytes and macroalgal tissue for isotope analysis
• Sampling of water for nutrients, dissolved organic carbon, suspended matter content and composition
• Sampling of porewater for nutrients
• Determination of photosynthetic active radiation
• Fertilization experiment over six weeks

What have we done in the field laboratory?

• Filtering of water samples for suspended matter analysis
• Drying of the filters
• Measuring chlorophyll a from filters
• Measuring nutrient samples
• Measuring seagrass traits
• Remove epiphytes from seagrass leaves
• Sorting and identifying seagrasses
• Drying and weighing of seagrass and epiphytes for biomass and isotope analyses
• Measuring seagrass and epiphyte biomass
• Taking pictures for seagrass growth measurements

Where did we collect our samples?


Basic information about seagrass in our Fact Sheet


 

Video presenting seagrass, the endangered prairies of the sea

Comments are closed.