Decline and recovery of seagrass ecosystems- the dynamics of change

Abstract

The distribution of seagrass beds has often been described in the literature as if these communities were naturally static components of coastal ecosystems (Larkum, 1977; McRoy and McMillan, 1977; Orth and Moore, 1983; Kirkman and Kuo, 1990), disturbed only by human influences.Aparadigm of seagrass bed stability, developed for large bed-forming seagrasses such as Posidonia as in the Mediterranean Sea (Boudouresque et al., 1980), and thewestern and southern coasts of Australia (Larkum, 1976; Larkum andWest, 1983; Kirkman, 1978), suggested that sea level had been stable for the last 5-8,000 years and assumed that these large monospecific seagrass beds were static for that period. © 2006/2007 Springer. All Rights Reserved.