Seagrasses in the age of sea turtle conservation and shark overfishing
By Michael R. Heithaus, T. Alcoverro, R. Arthur, D. Burkholder, K. Coates, Marjolijn J. A. Christianen, N. Kelkar, Sarah A. Manuel, Aaron J. Wirsing, W. Kenworthy and 1 more. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2014
142 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Efforts to conserve globally declining herbivorous green sea turtles have resulted in promising growth of some populations. These trends could significantly impact critical ecosystem services provided by seagrass meadows on which turtles feed. Expanding turtle populations could improve seagrass ecosystem health by removing seagrass biomass and preventing of the formation of sediment anoxia. However, overfishing of large sharks, the primary green turtle predators, could facilitate turtle populations growing beyond historical sizes and trigger detrimental ecosystem impacts mirroring those on land when top predators were extirpated. Experimental data from multiple ocean basins suggest that increasing turtle populations can negatively impact seagrasses, including triggering virtual ecosystem collapse. Impacts of large turtle populations on seagrasses are reduced in the presence of intact shark populations. Healthy populations of sharks and turtles, therefore, are likely vital to restoring or maintaining seagrass ecosystem structure, function, and their value in supporting fisheries and as a carbon sink.
Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/82f6828a5f29a3837209620c9c8c91e027b8fccf
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Ecology
- G. Hays
- Bj Godley
- AC Broderick
- G. Schofield
- M. Hamann
- Mariana M. P. B. Fuentes
- P. Casale
- Matthew H. Godfrey
In Nature and Landscape Conservation
- G. Hays
- Bj Godley
- AC Broderick
- P. Casale
- G. Schofield
- M. Hamann
- Mariana M. P. B. Fuentes
- K. Bjorndal
Citations in the corpus
- Are we working towards global research priorities for management and conservation of sea turtles (2016, background): “…is leading to concerns regarding ecosystem collapse and human-wildlife conflict (Lal et al. 2010, Christianen et al. 2014) in some instances, while in others it has been posited that increases in abundance may be a result of predator release due to shark overfishing (Heithaus et al. 2014).”