Occurrence of the seagrass Halophila stipulacea (Hydrocharitaceae) in the southern Mediterranean Sea
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Abstract
Halophila stipulacea is a dioecious seagrass that colonised the Mediterranean basin probably following the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. We investigated its occurrence in the southern Mediterranean. This was done by conducting targeted surveys in two countries (Tunisia and Libya) and compiling existing information from former research. Four new meadows of H. stipulacea were found in the study area: Al-wahesh Lagoon and Tobrouk Bay in Libya, and Kerkennah Island-Allama and Cap Monastir in Tunisia. The new record in Cap Monastir (Tunisia) documents a displacement of approximately 150 km north of the previous limit of H. stipulacea in the southern Mediterranean, which probably represents the westernmost extension of H. stipulacea’s distribution 3000 km west along the coast from the site of first colonisation at the mouth of the Suez Canal in Port Said. In the Cap Monastir meadow, the shoot density (±SD) was 9900±3509 m-2and the leaf area index was 3.15±0.5 m2m-2. In Libya, a small meadow of H. stipulacea was documented for the first time in Tobrouk Bay, with an estimated shoot density of 476±83 m-2.
©2011 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Research Articles
- Iberian intertidal turf assemblages dominated by Erythroglossum lusitanicum (Ceramiales, Rhodophyta): structure, temporal dynamics, and phenology
- Checklist of marine benthic green algae (Chlorophyta) on Hainan, a subtropical island off the coast of China: comparisons between the 1930s and 1990–2009 reveal environmental changes
- Notes on marine algae in the International Biosphere Reserve Seaflower, Caribbean Colombian I: new records of macroalgal epiphytes on the seagrass Thalassia testudinum
- Ceramium cormacii sp. nov. (Ceramiaceae, Rhodophyta), a new Mediterranean species epizoic on loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta)
- Life history of Chaetomorpha valida (Cladophoraceae, Chlorophyta) in culture
- Identification of hypo-osmotically induced genes in Kappaphycus alvarezii (Solieriaceae, Rhodophyta) through expressed sequence tag analysis
- Morphological variation in a small Thalassiosira species (Bacillariophyta) under different culture regimes
- Occurrence of the seagrass Halophila stipulacea (Hydrocharitaceae) in the southern Mediterranean Sea
- Reproductive biology of a natural mangrove hybrid Rhizophora annamalayana and its parent species (R. apiculata and R. mucronata) (Rhizophoraceae)
