Facultative Annual Life Cycles in Seagrasses.

Plant species usually have either annual or perennial life cycles, but facultative annual species have annual or perennial populations depending on their environment. In terrestrial angiosperms, facultative annual species are rare, with wild rice being one of the few examples. Our review shows that in marine angiosperms (seagrasses) facultative annual species are more common: six (of 63) seagrass species are facultative annual.

Climate change mitigation by coral reefs and seagrass beds at risk: How global change compromises coastal ecosystem services.

Seagrass meadows provide valuable ecosystem services of coastal protection and chemical habitat formation that could help mitigate the impact of sea level rise and ocean acidification. However, the intensification of hydrodynamic forces caused by sea level rise, in addition to habitat degradation threaten the provision of these ecosystem services. With quantitative field measurements of the coastal protection and chemical habitat formation services of seagrass meadows, we statistically model the relationships between hydrodynamic forces, vegetation density and the provision of these ecosystem services.

Rewilding the Sea with Domesticated Seagrass.

It is well known that seagrass meadows sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide, protect coasts, provide nurseries for global fisheries, and enhance biodiversity. Large-scale restoration of lost seagrass meadows is urgently needed to revive these planetary ecosystem services, but sourcing donor material from natural meadows would further decline them. Therefore, we advocate the domestication and mariculture of seagrasses in order to produce the large quantities of seed needed for successful rewilding of the sea with seagrass meadows.