Distribution of the seagrass Halophila stipulacea: A big jump to the northwestern Mediterranean Sea

Thibaut, Thierry; Blanfuné, Aurelie; Boudouresque, Charles–François; Holon, Florian; Agel, N.; Descamps, P.; Déter, Julie; Pavy, Thomas; Delaruelle, Gwenaelle; Verlaque, Marc

doi:10.1016/j.aquabot.2021.103465

Cited by 29 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…It has progressively settled northward and has been frequently observed in Ionan Sea since the 1990s, detected in Tyrrhenian Sea in 2006) (Di Genio et al, 2021), and is presently reaching northwestern Mediterranean (Winters et al, 2020;Di Genio et al, 2021;Thibaut et al, 2022). In Cannes harbor (NW Mediterranean Sea), H. stipulacea was probably introduced via big yachting coming by Suez Canal and are establishing stable population which could indicate that conditions are now more favorable for long-term population establishment (Thibaut et al, 2022). H. stipulacea is presently the only non-native seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea (Garcıá-Escudero et al, 2022).…”

Section: Shifts In the Export Of Seagrass Detritusmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The tropical seagrass Halophila stipulacea, a Lessepsian species, has been observed in the southern part of Mediterranean Sea since the opening of the Suez Canal. It has progressively settled northward and has been frequently observed in Ionan Sea since the 1990s, detected in Tyrrhenian Sea in 2006) (Di Genio et al, 2021), and is presently reaching northwestern Mediterranean (Winters et al, 2020;Di Genio et al, 2021;Thibaut et al, 2022). In Cannes harbor (NW Mediterranean Sea), H. stipulacea was probably introduced via big yachting coming by Suez Canal and are establishing stable population which could indicate that conditions are now more favorable for long-term population establishment (Thibaut et al, 2022).…”

Section: Shifts In the Export Of Seagrass Detritusmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Additionally, tropical species of macroalgae, seagrasses, invertebrates and fishes have been introduced via tropical aquarium release and maritime transport (Katsanevakis et al, 2014;Galil et al, 2018;Zenetos and Galanidi, 2020). Until recently, many introduced species were only settled in the southern basin of the Mediterranean Sea and often considered as native by present day fishermen, but recent sea temperature increases have now allowed Lessepsian species to expand their range northward (all Aegean Sea, and Adriatic and northern Mediterranean basin) (Katsanevakis et al, 2014;Zenetos and Galanidi, 2020;Thibaut et al, 2022). This has also allowed species that have recently been introduced via ballast water, yachting or aquarium trading to acclimate themselves in Adriatic and north-western Mediterranean waters (Katsanevakis et al, 2014).…”

Section: Tropicalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…H. stipulacea is presently the only non-native seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea (Garcıá-Escudero et al, 2022). It generally colonizes habitats devoid of native seagrass, forms mixed meadows with C. nodosa (Winters et al, 2020), or colonizes dead matte of P. oceanica (Thibaut et al, 2022). Presently, H stipulacea is not replacing any native seagrass species, but this may occur when temperatures rise beyond the thermal tolerances of the native species (Wesselmann et al, 2021).…”

Section: Shifts In the Export Of Seagrass Detritusmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tropicalization of seagrass macrophytodetritus accumulations and associated food webs

Lepoint

Hyndes

2022

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Seagrass, systems export significant amounts of their primary production as large detritus (i.e. macrophytodetritus). Accumulations of exported macrophytodetritus (AEM) are found in many areas in coastal environment. Dead seagrass leaves are often a dominant component of these accumulations, offering shelter and/or food to numerous organisms. AEM are particular habitats, different from donor habitats (i.e. seagrass meadow, kelp or macroalgae habitats) and with their own characteristics and dynamics. They have received less attention than donor habitats despite the fact they often connect different coastal habitats, are the place of intense remineralization processes and shelter associated detritus food web. As for seagrass meadows themselves, AEM are potentially affected by global change and by tropicalization processes. Here, we review briefly general characteristic of AEM with a focus on Mediterranean Sea and Western Australia and we provide some hypotheses concerning their tropicalization in a near future. We conclude that AEM functioning could change either through: (1) declines in biomass or loss of seagrass directly due to increased ocean temperatures or increased herbivory from tropicalized herbivores; (2) increased degradation and processing of seagrass detritus within seagrass meadows leading to reduced export; (3) replacement of large temperate seagrass species with smaller tropical seagrass species; and/or (4) loss or changes to macroalgae species in neighboring habitats that export detritus. These processes will alter the amount, composition, quality, timing and frequency of inputs of detritus into ecosystems that rely on AEM as trophic subsidies, which will alter the suitability of AEM as habitat and food for invertebrates.

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Section: Shifts In the Export Of Seagrass Detritusmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Shifts In the Export Of Seagrass Detritusmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Tropicalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Shifts In the Export Of Seagrass Detritusmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Tropicalization of seagrass macrophytodetritus accumulations and associated food webs

Lepoint

Hyndes

2022

Front. Mar. Sci.

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“…Understanding the dynamics of seagrasses and how associated faunal communities within these habitats change through time is important to understand their response to environmental change and assist predictions about the future of these ecosystems, as well as the scope to rebuild biodiversity losses through active seagrass conservation and restoration. This is particularly important in the Mediterranean Sea, which is home to extensive seagrass meadows, including the endemic and most widespread seagrass Posidonia oceanica [36,37], the native Cymodocea nodosa which is increasing its distribution in some areas [38], as well as the exotic (Indo-Pacific origin) seagrass Halophila stipulacea which has been found mostly in the eastern Mediterranean since 1923 [39] but is expanding into the western Mediterranean [40][41][42] and is forecasted to continue doing so [43]. However, the Mediterranean is highly impacted by the urbanization of the littoral zone since the 1960s, eutrophication, the exploitation of living resources, high warming rates (0.65 • C and 0.25 • C decade −1 in the western and eastern Mediterranean), and the rapid spread of exotic species arriving from the Atlantic though the Gibraltar Strait or from the Indo-Pacific Ocean through the Suez Canal, resulting in an extensive loss of coastal habitats [32,44,45].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

eDNA Reveals the Associated Metazoan Diversity of Mediterranean Seagrass Sediments

et al. 2022

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Anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems have led to a decline of biodiversity across the oceans, threatening invaluable ecosystem services on which we depend. Ecological temporal data to track changes in diversity are relatively rare, and the few long-term datasets that exist often only date back a few decades or less. Here, we use eDNA taken from dated sediment cores to investigate changes over approximately the last 100 years of metazoan communities in native (Cymodocea nodosa and Posidonia oceanica) and exotic (Halophila stipulacea) seagrass meadows within the eastern Mediterranean Sea, at two locations in Greece and two in Cyprus. Overall, metazoan communities showed a high turnover of taxa during the past century, where losses of individual taxa in a seagrass meadow were compensated by the arrival of new taxa, probably due to the arrival of exotic species introduced in the Mediterranean Sea from the Suez Canal or the Gibraltar Strait. Specifically, bony fishes (Class Actinopteri) and soft corals (Class Anthozoa) presented significantly higher richness in the past (before the 1980s) than in the most recent time periods (from 1980–2017) and some Cnidarian orders were solely found in the past, whereas sponges and Calanoids (Class Hexanauplia), an order of copepods, showed an increase in richness since the 1980s. Moreover, the Phyla Porifera, Nematoda and the Classes Staurozoa, Hydrozoa and Ophiuroidea were detected in P. oceanica meadows but not in C. nodosa and H. stipulacea, which led to P. oceanica meadows having twice the richness of other seagrasses. The greater richness resulted from the more complex habitat provided by P. oceanica. The combination of eDNA and sediment cores allowed us to reconstruct temporal patterns of metazoan community diversity and provides a novel approach to follow natural communities back in time in the absence of time series and baseline data. The ongoing loss of P. oceanica meadows, likely to be compounded with future warming, might lead to a major loss of biodiversity and the replacement by other seagrass species, whether native or exotic, does not compensate for the loss.

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Population genomics unveils the century-old invasion of the Seagrass Halophila stipulacea in the Mediterranean Sea

García-Escudero,

Tsigenopoulos,

Manousaki

et al. 2023

Mar Biol

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The tropical seagrass Halophila stipulacea invaded the Eastern Mediterranean Sea in the late nineteenth century and progressively spread throughout the basin ever since. Its spread is expected to continue north-westward as the Mediterranean Sea becomes warmer, potentially changing the seagrass biogeography of the basin. Given the power of genomics to assess invasion dynamics in non-model species, we report the first ddRAD-seq study of H. stipulacea and small-scale population genomic analysis addressing its century-old Mediterranean invasion. Based on 868 SNPs and 35 genotyped native (Red Sea) and exotic (from Cyprus, Greece, and Italy) samples, results suggest that genetic structure was high, especially between major geographic discontinuities, and that exotic populations maintain comparably lower genetic diversity than native populations, despite 130 years of invasion. The evidence of high heterozygosity excess, coupled with previously reported male-dominated and rare flowering records in the exotic range, suggests that clonal propagation likely played a pivotal role in the successful colonization and spread of H. stipulacea in the Mediterranean. This shift in reproductive strategy, particularly evident in the Italian populations located closest to the western boundary and representing more recent establishments, underscores the importance of this cost-effective mode of reproduction, especially during the initial stages of invasion, raising questions about the species future expansion trajectory. Our findings serve as a catalyst for future research into the species’ invasion dynamics, including deciphering the intricate roles of acclimatization and rapid adaptation, important for a comprehensive assessment of invasion risks and improving management strategies aimed at conserving seagrass ecosystems.

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Distribution of the seagrass Halophila stipulacea: A big jump to the northwestern Mediterranean Sea

Cited by 29 publications

References 16 publications

Tropicalization of seagrass macrophytodetritus accumulations and associated food webs

Tropicalization of seagrass macrophytodetritus accumulations and associated food webs

eDNA Reveals the Associated Metazoan Diversity of Mediterranean Seagrass Sediments

Population genomics unveils the century-old invasion of the Seagrass Halophila stipulacea in the Mediterranean Sea

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