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Seagrass Ecology

Seagrass Ecology Estuarine seagrass ecosystems in North Carolina and Florida Seagrasses Angiosperms (flowering plants) that live life entirely underwater Primary productivity is among the highest measured (500 - 4000 g C/m 2 /year)

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Seagrass Ecology

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  1. Seagrass Ecology Estuarine seagrass ecosystems in North Carolina and Florida

  2. Seagrasses • Angiosperms (flowering plants) that live life entirely underwater • Primary productivity is among the highest measured (500 - 4000 g C/m2/year) • Important feeding and refuge habitat for fishery species (shrimp, scallops, fishes) • Seagrasses act as sediment stablizers help to filter water

  3. Major polyhaline seagrass species

  4. Major oligohaline aquatic macrophytes

  5. Seagrass productivity

  6. Habitat Complexity • Habitat complexity is high in seagrass/SAV • Predators are inhibited by complexity because the prey have many places to hide • Densities of many invertebrates (infaunal and epifaunal) and small fishes are greater in SAV than in nearby unvegetated areas • Seagrass provides a refuge from predation

  7. Types of animals in seagrass • Infauna: bury in sediment. • Polychaete worms, amphipods, clams, benefit from root and rhizome mat which protects from predators • deeper-living animals survive better than shallow-living (Mercenaria > Chione) • Epifauna: Live on surface of blades and sediment • Meiofauna (harpacticoid copepods), macrofauna (amphipods. isopods), tube-dwelling sessile polychaetes, gastropods, decapods • Shoot and leaf complexity provides refuge • Mobile fauna: Live in water over canopy • fishes swim above canopy, dive into it when predator

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