Assessment of the community status of seagrass bed and its relationship with environmental characteristics in Wenchang, Hainan Island, China

Abstract

As one of the typical coastal ecosystems, seagrass bed has important ecological service functions. In order to enrich the basic data of multispecies tropical seagrass beds, the main controlling factors affecting the community status of seagrass were identified. In this study, the species, distribution and community characteristics of seagrass in Wenchang were investigated at five stations in 2023, and Spearman correlation analysis and Redundancy analysis were used to investigate the relationship between seagrass and environmental characteristics. The results showed that there were 7 species of seagrass belonging to 5 genera in 2 families along Wenchang coast, including Enhalus acoroides, Thalassia hemprichii, Cymodocea rotundata, Cymodocea serrulata, Halophila ovalis, Halophila minor and Halodule uninervis. The distribution of seagrass beds in Wenchang showed an obvious trend of degradation. Except for the relatively stable of seagrass beds in the central part of Wenchang, the seagrass beds on both the north and south sides decreased significantly, and the coverage of seagrass beds decreased from 24.31% in 2016 to 21.0% in 2020, and further decreased to 20.67% in 2023. The data showed that the coverage and aboveground biomass of seagrass were significantly positively correlated with temperature, and the density of seagrass was significantly positively correlated with DO, but significantly negatively correlated with COD. In addition, increased nutrient salts in the water column could negatively affect seagrass bed. In order to promote the sustainable development of seagrass ecosystem and enhance the stability of seagrass habitat, it is suggested to rationally plan the aquaculture scale of the surrounding area; flexibly manage the rake snail, rake clam and other fishing activities, appropriately reduce the frequency of mining; and scientifically plan marine engineering to reduce the damage to seagrass bed.