ABSTRACT

Because the footprint of man is now perceptible in all aspects of the state of the natural world, such that we accept that we are now in the Era of the “Anthropocene” (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000), there is much emphasis on quantifying the impact of global change on biological distributions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions (Schulze and Mooney 1994, Chapin et al. 1997, Snelgrove 1999, Duarte 2000, Hughes 2000, Smith et al. 2000, Harley et al. 2006, Occhipinti-Ambrogi 2007). The discussion of Hughes (2000) however, recommended that these types of studies need to be grounded on sound monitoring of how existing natural perturbations already influence the behavior and life cycles of flora and fauna of interest. The series of papers compiled by Pickett and White (1985) on The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and Patch Dynamics and by Hobbie et al. (1994) are examples of good background as basis to study the effects of global change over and above natural disturbances. Changes in global climate are anticipated to greatly impact the world’s seagrasses (Short and Neckles 1999). The responses are predicted to be linked with hydrodynamics, which affects every aspect of the existence of seagrasses, the benthos in general (Koch et al. 2006), and the processes at various scales that affect clonal growth, and eventually, seagrass colonization and recovery from disturbance (Hemminga and Duarte 2000, Duarte et al. 2006). One focus of global change studies is watershed modification and sediment delivery to the coast and its consequences to coastal habitat distribution and health (e.g., Terrados et al. 1998, Kamp-Nielsen et al. 2002, Orth et al. 2006). Studies on the natural reworking of sediments in seagrass meadows have also developed from providing evidence of biotic interactions to the perspective of ecosystem engineering (e.g., Berkenbusch et al. 2000, Siebert and Branch 2006, Berkenbusch et al. 2007, Pillay et al. 2007).