Search results for " sea prairies"

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATIONS ON THE FLORA OF THE PERMANENT BANQUETTES IN WESTERN SICILY

2016

The banquettes, landed clusters of dead leaves of Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile, represent a deposited biomass from sea to land that protects the shoreline from wind and sea erosion as well as constitutes a reserve of nutrients and organic matter for sea prairies. These wracks can become a potential biodiversity hotspot as indicated by a recent investigation on invertebrates that has shown high levels of consumption of detritus (1). This biodiversity, greater than that found in coastal areas without such accumulations, can be explained by the margin effect between the marine and the terrestrial environment. The banquette can therefore be considered an ecotone (2, 3) where communities of su…