ABSTRACT
Abstract Seagrass beds are thought to have a fundamental role in maintaining populations of commercially exploited fish and invertebrate species by providing one or more of the following: (a) a permanent habitat, allowing completion of the full life cycle, (b) a temporary nursery area for the successful development of the juvenile stages, (c) a feeding area for various life-history stages and (d) a refuge from predation. In addition to these primary roles, seagrass beds are thought to maintain fisheries indirectly by providing organic matter that is incorporated into coastal nutrient cycles and which supports secondary production, including fisheries species. Unfortunately, these roles have been distilled from a disparate literature that often reports results using different sampling methods, seagrass species, geographical locations and temporal or spatial scales.
