Salicornia perennis is a halophyte belonging to the botanical subfamily Salicornioideae that forms extensive perennial salt marsh patches. This subfamily has excellent potential, still unexplored, as a source of food, medicine, and phytoremediation. This study aimed to evaluate the lipophilic composition of the Salicornia perennis different organs inhabiting salt marshes of Ria de Aveiro under different stress regimes. For this purpose, the lipophilic content was extracted with hexane and subsequent GC-MS analysis of the extracts for each plant organ, which was collected in three different salt marshes of the Ria de Aveiro. High sugar content was detected in the stems, whereas in fruiting articles, the higher content was in fatty acids. Shorter-chain organic acids were concentrated in the stems and vegetative articles; waxes were detected in greater quantity in photosynthetic organs. More or less stressful environments induce changes in the ratio and composition of molecules, such as acclimatization and oxidative stress reduction strategies; for example, fatty acid content was higher in plants subjected to a higher stress regime. These data contribute to understand the metabolic pathways of the species under study, suggesting new research approaches to its potential as food, medicine, and phytoremediator.

Salt marshes are among the most valuable ecosystems on earth; however, previous research has reported global losses in their extent accompanied by an impairment of their ecological processes. Nonetheless, investigations on salt marsh vegetation ecology are still lacking in many sites, including in Ria de Aveiro. As such, this study aimed to (1) monitor, characterize, and understand the evolution of salt marsh vegetation communities at three different study sites with different environmental conditions and stages of degradation, where we also sought to (2) identify the main delimiting abiotic factors associated with the distribution of the main species. To do so, a multidisciplinary approach that involved the survey of vegetation from permanent transects and the collection of ecological, physicochemical, and hydrodynamic data at sampling points within the monospecific stands of the main species was reported. The results showed that, of the abiotic factors deemed as the main delimiting forces of salt marsh vegetation, the soil elevation and hydroperiod were the most restrictive factors, as they ultimately influenced species composition at the different study sites and explained most of the variation observed between the studied monospecific stands.