Descriptors of Posidonia oceanica meadows: Use and application

TLDR: This paper synthesises the existing methods applied to monitor P. oceanica meadows, identifies the most suitable techniques and suggests future research directions, and shows the interest of a practical guide that describes, in a standardized way, the most useful techniques enabling P. Oceanica meadow to be used as an environmental descriptor.

About: This article is published in Ecological Indicators.The article was published on 2005-08-01 and is currently open access. It has received 176 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Posidonia oceanica.

Figures

Fig. 3. Advantages and difficulties of the methods used for the monitoring of the position of the lower depth limit position (% and number of expressed answers according to the number of laboratories using this descriptor).

Table 2 Type of quadrat and number of replicates used in order to evaluate the density of the meadows (percentage of answers expressed according to the number of laboratories using the density descriptor then according to the type of quadrat)

Fig. 4. Advantages and difficulties of the methods used for the monitoring of the position of the upper depth limit (% and number of expressed answers according to the number of laboratories using this descriptor).

Table 1 List of the descriptors, and the specific parameters associated, considered in the questionnaire

Table 4 Directs and secondary impacts on Posidonia oceanica descriptors and their time of answers

Table 3 Size, type of surface and number of replicates used to estimate the bottom cover of the meadows (percentage of answers expressed according to the number of laboratories using the bottom cover descriptor)

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Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "Descriptors of posidonia oceanica meadows: use and application" ?

This paper synthesises the existing methods applied to monitor P. oceanica meadows, identifies the most suitable techniques and suggests future research directions. From the results of a questionnaire, distributed to all the identified laboratories working on this topic, a list of the most commonly used descriptors was drawn up, together with the related research techniques ( e. g. standardization, interest and limits, valuation of the results ). This paper shows the interest of a practical guide that describes, in a standardized way, the most useful techniques enabling P. oceanica meadows to be used as an environmental descriptor.