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Angiosperms (seagrass) within the EU water framework directive: a UK perspective
1Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR33 0HT, United Kingdom. jo.foden@cefas.co.uk
Marine Pollution Bulletin
|October 10, 2006
Summary
New metrics assess seagrass health for Water Framework Directive (WFD) monitoring. These metrics quantify marine angiosperm status, reflecting responses to human disturbance in UK waters.
Area of Science:
- Marine ecology
- Environmental monitoring
- Conservation biology
Background:
- Marine angiosperms are crucial biological quality elements for assessing environmental conditions under the Water Framework Directive (WFD).
- Monitoring taxonomic composition, presence of sensitive species, and abundance are key attributes for evaluating marine angiosperm status.
- Establishing reference conditions for these attributes is vital for ecological status assessments in UK water bodies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and present a set of quantitative metrics for monitoring and assessing seagrass beds.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of these metrics in reflecting the ecological status of marine angiosperms.
- To demonstrate how these metrics can express the cumulative response of seagrass to anthropogenic disturbance.
Main Methods:
- Quantitative measurements of seagrass attributes: taxonomic composition, presence of disturbance-sensitive species, and abundance.
- Development of a suite of metrics based on these quantitative measurements.
- Testing the proposed metrics against diverse UK seagrass beds (littoral and sublittoral).
Main Results:
- A set of metrics has been developed for monitoring seagrass status.
- The metrics were tested on various UK seagrass beds.
- The combined metrics effectively express the cumulative response of marine angiosperms to different levels of anthropogenic disturbance.
Conclusions:
- The developed metrics provide a robust tool for monitoring the ecological status of seagrass.
- These metrics are essential for WFD compliance and the assessment of UK water bodies.
- The metrics offer a quantitative approach to understanding the impact of human activities on marine angiosperm health.
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