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Abstract

Seagrasses are marine flowering plants that form extensive meadows from the inter-tidal zone up to ~50 m depth. As biological and ecological Essential Biodiversity Variables, seagrass cover and composition provide a wide range of ecosystem services. Inter-tidal seagrass meadows provide services to many ecosystems, so monitoring their occurrence, extent, condition and diversity can be used to indicate the biodiversity and health of local ecosystems. Current global estimates of seagrass extent and recent reviews either do not mention inter-tidal seagrasses and their seasonal variation, or combine them with sub-tidal seagrasses. Here, using high-spatial and high-temporal resolution satellite data (Sentinel-2), we demonstrate a method for consistently mapping inter-tidal seagrass meadows and their phenology at a continental scale. We were able to highlight varying seasonal patterns that are observable across a 23° latitudinal range. Timings of peaks in seagrass extent varied by up to 5 months, rather than the previously assumed marginal to non-existent variation in peak timing. These results will aid management by providing high-resolution spatio-temporal monitoring data to better inform seagrass conservation and restoration. They also highlight the high level of seasonal variability in inter-tidal seagrass, meaning combination with sub-tidal seagrass for global assessments will likely produce misleading or incorrect estimates.

Publication Date

2024-12-01

Publication Title

Communications Earth and Environment

Volume

5

Issue

1

ISSN

2662-4435

Acceptance Date

2024-07-02

Deposit Date

2024-12-19

Funding

This work was supported through the BiCOME (Biodiversity of the Coastal Ocean: Monitoring with Earth Observation) project funded by the European Space Agency under the ‘Earth Observation Science for Society’ element of FutureEO-1 BIODIVERSITY + PRECURSORS call, contract No. 4000135756/21/I-EF. This work was also supported through the REWRITE (Rewilding European Shorelines and Beyond) project funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement 101081357. Drone data collection at Cádiz Bay was financed by the SAT4ALGAE (PY20-00244) project by Junta de Andalucía, and A.R. is supported by grant FPU19/04557 funded by the Ministry of Universities of the Spanish Government. Further, this work was partially funded by Portuguese national funds through the FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., under the individual project/contract CEECIND/00962/ 2017 and by FCT/MCTES through the support to CESAM (UIDB/50017/ 2020 + UIDP/50017/2020 + LA/P/0094/2020).

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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