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Seagrasses of Australia pp 665–704Cite as

Decline and Restoration Ecology of Australian Seagrasses

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Abstract

Since the first version of this book almost 30 years ago, significant losses of seagrass meadows have continued to be reported from around Australia as a result of natural and human induced perturbations. Conservative estimates indicate losses over the past two decades have more than doubled that estimated in the late 1990s. Conservation and mitigation of disturbance regimes have typically been the first line of defence, but ecological restoration or intervention is becoming increasingly necessary in a rapidly changing environment, and is potentially a more effective management strategy where seagrass habitat is already lost or heavily degraded. Accordingly, there has been an increase in the number of restoration studies and projects feeding our knowledge-base of restoration practice across Australia. Yet despite this increase, successful restoration has been rare, often uncoordinated, and almost always at a scale that is orders of magnitude lower than the scale of loss. Clearly, our understanding of the ecological mechanisms underlying successful and unsuccessful seagrass restoration is not keeping pace with the rates of loss and societal needs for restoration. Indeed, many orders of magnitude more restoration effort, in terms of science and practice and their interactions, will be required to prevent further seagrass loss. The science of seagrass restoration or restoration ecology is still a young science, but has strong foundations built from several decades of ecological research addressing many aspects of ecological interactions in seagrasses. While restoration has strong scientific underpinnings from ecological theory, it is clear that restoration ecology can also contribute to ecological theory by providing new and novel opportunities to advance our understanding of the mechanisms that promote functional ecosystems. In this chapter, we provide examples of this understanding across the levels of biological hierarchy, from genes to landscapes, and where possible include future strategic research directions.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is contribution no. 3614 of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William and Mary. Kendrick, Orth, Dixon Sinclair and Statton were partially funded by ARC LP130100155, LP130100918 and LP160101011. Jackson was funded by the Ian Potter Foundation, Norman Wettenhall Foundation and Fitzroy Basin Association. Figure 20.3 utilised the IAN/UMCES SAV Symbol Library courtesy of the Integration and Application Network, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (ian.umces.edu/symbols/).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences and Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, 6009, WA, Australia

    John Statton & Elizabeth A. Sinclair

  2. College of William and Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point, VA, 23061, USA

    Robert J. Orth

  3. School of Medical & Applied Sciences, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, 4701, Australia

    Andrew D. Irving & Emma L. Jackson

  4. Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Bentley, Perth, WA, Australia

    Kingsley W. Dixon

  5. Kings Park and Botanic Garden, Fraser Avenue, West Perth, 6005, WA, Australia

    Kingsley W. Dixon & Elizabeth A. Sinclair

  6. School of Biological Sciences and the Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

    Gary A. Kendrick

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Correspondence to John Statton .

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  1. Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Anthony W. D. Larkum

  2. School of Biological Sciences and the Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Autralia, Australia

    Gary A. Kendrick

  3. Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Peter J. Ralph

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Statton, J. et al. (2018). Decline and Restoration Ecology of Australian Seagrasses. In: Larkum, A., Kendrick, G., Ralph, P. (eds) Seagrasses of Australia. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71354-0_20

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