Environmental correlates of Thalassia hemprichii status descriptors: an evaluation of tools for diagnostic monitoring

Suryati M. Ali; Jie He; Beverly P.L. Goh; Tsai M. Sin

doi:10.1515/bot-2017-0083

Article

Environmental correlates of Thalassia hemprichii status descriptors: an evaluation of tools for diagnostic monitoring

Suryati M. Ali is a research associate with the Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics Group at the Tropical Marine Science Institute. Her research centres on understanding how seagrasses respond to changes within their habitats and the utility of measuring these responses to detect deteriorating environmental quality and quantify declines in seagrass performance and health. She is also involved with impact assessments and environmental monitoring of coastal ecosystems, taking an integrative approach to quantify environmental/ecological risks through the use of field data coupled with numerical models to improve predictive ability.
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Jie He is an associate professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She obtained her PhD from Macquarie University, Australia, in 1991 and has more than 30 years of research experience in plant physiology. Her research interests include (1) photosynthesis (chlorophyll fluorescence, Rubisco protein and carbohydrate metabolism), (2) shoot-root communication (C partitioning, nutrient uptake and N metabolism, (3) the effects of root-zone temperature and root-zone CO₂ enrichment on aeroponically grown temperate vegetable crop in the tropics, and (4) the effects of LED quality and quantity on photosynthesis and vegetable production.
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Beverly P.L. Goh is a senior lecturer in the Natural Sciences and Science Education Group, Nanyang Technological University. An ecotoxicologist by training, her work focuses on coral reefs and coastal ecosystems in Singapore, and studying the effects of environmental change from man-made sources on marine organisms and ecosystems. Her research outreach efforts are directed at facilitating Citizen Science through field studies using tropical marine organisms to monitor marine environmental health. The biomarker techniques developed are part of her core research that aims to identify signals from nature that can serve as important early warning signs of stress in the environment.
and
Tsai M. Sin was a senior research fellow with the Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics Group at the Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore. An ecologist at heart, she was always fascinated by the dynamic complexities between marine organisms and their ecosystems. Her multi-disciplinary research had spanned from studying the ecology of coral reefs and biofouling organisms, developing intelligent monitoring of coastal environment, designing tools for quantitative predictions of change/impact, risk mapping and evaluation, to building a data management platform for interactive use of cross-disciplinary data.

Published/Copyright: July 13, 2018

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From the journal Botanica Marina Volume 61 Issue 4

Abstract

Accurate evaluation of target organisms is fundamental to quantify responses to disturbances, elucidate thresholds and strengthen effective management. Threats to seagrasses in Singapore are excessive nutrients and sedimentation, leading to an evaluation of descriptor utility to detect plant response to nutrient and light availability using Thalassia hemprichii as the model species. A combination of popularly used seagrass physio-morphological descriptors and epibiont biomass were measured to assess plant response to environmental quality. Results showed convincing support for the use of leaf pigments as indicators of light availability and salinity changes. Water column nitrification and phosphorus availability had strong effects on leaf nutrient content, leaf morphology and epibiont biomass. Relationships between leaf length and light contradicted expected patterns, where shorter leaves were associated with lowered light. This may be attributable to hydrodynamic or sedimentation regimes and hence, is not a reliable indicator of light limitation. There was strong support for inclusion of epibiont biomass as part of nutrient response evaluation since this descriptor correlated strongly with water column nutrients and appeared to limit light availability to the seagrass. This study demonstrated the importance of integrating various levels of plant descriptors to reliably assess seagrass status, employing different combination of descriptors to monitor specific stressors.

Keywords: diagnostic monitoring; habitat quality; health assessment; indicators; tropical seagrasses

About the authors

Suryati M. Ali

Suryati M. Ali is a research associate with the Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics Group at the Tropical Marine Science Institute. Her research centres on understanding how seagrasses respond to changes within their habitats and the utility of measuring these responses to detect deteriorating environmental quality and quantify declines in seagrass performance and health. She is also involved with impact assessments and environmental monitoring of coastal ecosystems, taking an integrative approach to quantify environmental/ecological risks through the use of field data coupled with numerical models to improve predictive ability.

Jie He

Jie He is an associate professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She obtained her PhD from Macquarie University, Australia, in 1991 and has more than 30 years of research experience in plant physiology. Her research interests include (1) photosynthesis (chlorophyll fluorescence, Rubisco protein and carbohydrate metabolism), (2) shoot-root communication (C partitioning, nutrient uptake and N metabolism, (3) the effects of root-zone temperature and root-zone CO₂ enrichment on aeroponically grown temperate vegetable crop in the tropics, and (4) the effects of LED quality and quantity on photosynthesis and vegetable production.

Beverly P.L. Goh

Beverly P.L. Goh is a senior lecturer in the Natural Sciences and Science Education Group, Nanyang Technological University. An ecotoxicologist by training, her work focuses on coral reefs and coastal ecosystems in Singapore, and studying the effects of environmental change from man-made sources on marine organisms and ecosystems. Her research outreach efforts are directed at facilitating Citizen Science through field studies using tropical marine organisms to monitor marine environmental health. The biomarker techniques developed are part of her core research that aims to identify signals from nature that can serve as important early warning signs of stress in the environment.

Tsai M. Sin

Tsai M. Sin was a senior research fellow with the Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics Group at the Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore. An ecologist at heart, she was always fascinated by the dynamic complexities between marine organisms and their ecosystems. Her multi-disciplinary research had spanned from studying the ecology of coral reefs and biofouling organisms, developing intelligent monitoring of coastal environment, designing tools for quantitative predictions of change/impact, risk mapping and evaluation, to building a data management platform for interactive use of cross-disciplinary data.

Acknowledgements

This research was jointly funded by an NSSE (NIE) Grant “NParks Bio-Monitoring-Tool-Kit” to B.P.L. Goh and a TMSI Internal Grant to S.M. Ali. The authors would like to thank National Parks Board (permit numbers NP/RP915 and NP/RP915-1) and National Environment Agency for site access, and TeamSeagrass for logistic support sampling Pulau Semakau and Chek Jawa. We also thank L. Qin, M.F.M. Samsi, A.E. Alip, W.Y.S. Yeo, H.C. Tan and M.R. Duriat for their assistance. The demise of our co-author, T.M. Sin, occurred during the final stages of this manuscript preparation. Her contribution to marine science will be missed.

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Article note

This article is related to special issue Seagrass research in Southeast Asia, published in Botanica Marina 2018, vol. 61, issue 3.

Received: 2017-10-17

Accepted: 2018-06-21

Published Online: 2018-07-13

Published in Print: 2018-07-26

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Keywords for this article

diagnostic monitoring; habitat quality; health assessment; indicators; tropical seagrasses