Short-term changes in the structure of seagrass meadows across the entire Canarian Archipelago

Abstract

Cymodocea nodosa meadows are of greatly importance for the Canary Islands, but they are suffering from a serious regression. In order to determine if this decline is related to anthropogenic impacts, we took data on the coverage and shoot density of 27 meadows in the archipelago during 2015 and 2018. However, there was no a clear relation between meadows regression and anthropogenic impacts during this period (rs= 0.001, P>0.1). Despite this study reaffirms that C. nodosa meadows are in decline, short-term changes may not be directly linked to human actions, what clearly suggest long-term monitoring as a key tool to track the conservation status of C. nodosa meadows.