Carlos Toledo-Hernandez; Claudia Patricia Ruiz-Diaz

Impact of the invasive sea vine Halophila stipulacea on native seagrasses, invertebrates and fish assemblages

2022

Sociedad Ambiente Marino (SAM)

"In this study, we monitored, for one year, four seagrass meadows along the southern coasts of Culebra, Puerto Rico, with contrasting environmental conditions and Halophila stipulacea invasive pressure. The general goals of this project were to: 1) Understand how seagrass meadows under contrasting environmental conditions and threatened by rapidly spreading H. stipulacea respond to seasonal changes in water temperature, light intensity, sediment load and water current fluctuations, as a proxy to understand how seagrass meadows will adapt to the undergoing climate changes and human activities; 2) Assess the effects of H. stipulacea dominance on seagrass-associated demersal fish and invertebrate assemblages; 3) Experimentally assess the growth dynamics of Thalassia testudinum under a competitive interaction with H. stipulacea. This report summarizes the research outcomes for October 1, 2019, to April 30, 2022. During this period, we performed five monitoring periods, i.e., winter 2020, summer 2020, fall 2020, winter 2021, and spring 2021. The accomplished activities consisted of: 1. Estimating seagrass cover, canopy height, and shoot density. 2. Assessing the fish community and demersal seagrass invertebrate and cryptic fish fauna. 3. Prepared and monitored the seagrass competition experiment."

seagrass, invasive species, Halophila stipulacea, Thalassia testudinum, Syringodium filiforme, Puerto Rico

NOS

OCM

FY2022 CRCP Project ID 31224; Project Title: FY19 - Domestic Coral Reef Conservation Grants; Principal Investigator: Liz Fairey; Grant NA19NOS4820126.

NA19NOS4820126