GOOS-273
Priorities for Conservation, Monitoring and Research of Seagrass Ecosystems in Europe
Author(s): Lavenia Ratnarajah, Richard Unsworth, Lina Mtwana Nordlund, Sieglind Wallner Hahn
Seagrasses are flowering marine plants that can be found in tropical, temperate, and polar waters. As their rhizomes weave together under the seabed, seagrasses stabilise the sand and mud they grow in. They are also an important source of diet and nursery habitats for a range of marine animals and play a role in marine carbon sequestration. In Europe, seagrass research and monitoring are undertaken to understand how these critical ecosystems are changing and to meet national and regional policy requirements, however there is still a lot of work to be done. This workshop aimed to bring the seagrass community together to formulate, identify and compile important questions that, if answered, would strongly advance seagrass conservation in Europe towards rich and resilient seagrass ecosystems that would benefit both nature and people. Through a series of question development and subsequent voting using the Delphi method, the seagrass community within the European region identified 293 questions across 9 themes (Monitoring & Assessment, Biodiversity & Ecology, Drivers & Threats, Conservation & Restoration, Fisheries support, Ecosystem services & Communications, Blue carbon, Governance, Policy & Management and Cross-discipline). Workshop discussions synthesised these 293 questions to the top 100 priority questions for conservation, monitoring and research of seagrass ecosystems in Europe. The workshop brought together seagrass researchers, managers, and other practitioners for an opportunity to discuss the future need of seagrass science to be able to advance seagrass conservation in Europe. The possibility to collaborate on a way forward, gaining insight from countries across Europe and deliver the priority questions together to the wider community will strengthen the output.
| Doc Type | Report |
|---|---|
| Status | Published |
| Notes | |
| Created | at 07:44, 11 May 2022 by Forest Collins |
| Last updated | at 07:44, 11 May 2022 by Forest Collins |