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Latebreaking Poster

Session: Ecosystem Services Assessment (Latebreaking)

LB 17-149 - Seagrass ecosystem services show complex spatial patterns and associations along the Florida Gulf Coast

Thursday, August 10, 2023
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PDT
Location: ESA Exhibit Hall

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Jennifer McHenry, PhD

    Postdoctoral Researcher
    University of Victoria
    Room 105a, British Columbia, Canada

    • Coauthor(s)

  • AR

    Andrew Rassweiler

    Associate Professor
    Florida State University
    Tallahassee, Florida, United States

  • SL

    Sarah E Lester, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Florida State University
    Tallahassee, Florida, United States

Seagrass beds and the biodiversity they support provide a diversity of important ecosystem services to society, and thus widespread degradation has prompted broader efforts to protect and restore these habitats. Limited available resources for conservation and restoration could be better directed by leveraging information about the spatial patterns of potential ecosystem service benefits. However, compared to terrestrial and many marine ecosystems, the spatial dynamics of different seagrass ecosystem services are still poorly understood. Focusing on the Florida Gulf Coast as a study system, we aimed to quantify the spatial patterns and associations among different ecosystem services provided by seagrass beds. Combining a variety of ecological, biophysical, and socio-economic datasets, we developed spatial models for five key ecosystem services (biodiversity enhancement, nursery habitat, blue carbon, recreation, and coastal protection services), using model outputs to identify key predictors and to quantify the marginal effect of seagrasses on each service. Our models show that seagrasses significantly enhance the delivery of multiple benefits in Florida, but that there is likely to be considerable spatial variation in the supply of different services, resulting in distinct spatial patterns for where seagrasses are most valuable in providing different benefits (i.e., hotspots). Contrary to the widespread assumption that all seagrass services will be positively correlated with one another because they are strongly related to the attributes of seagrass beds, we also found an equal number of positive and negative associations among services, revealing the potential for both co-benefits and trade-offs associated with seagrass management decisions. Finally, we found that biodiversity was not a dependable proxy for all other services, as is sometimes assumed, highlighting the need for direct assessments of seagrass services. Our findings emphasize the importance of considering distinct predictors of different ecosystem services when assessing the benefits of seagrasses and other coastal habitats, especially when planning and prioritizing ecosystem conservation and restoration projects.