The effect of the installation of submarine cables on the growth of eelgrass in foreshore areas.

摘要

Seagrasses are an integral component of coastal ecosystems. In British Columbia, Canada beds of eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) provide high-value areas for a wide variety of flora and fauna. Eelgrass beds often are disturbed by the excavation through foreshore areas for installation or replacement of buried submarine cables that carry electricity along the ocean floor.;To assess the effects of the cable installation on eelgrass beds, I measured eelgrass shoot densities using quadrat counts along perpendicular transects of submarine cables at five cable terminal sites along the west coast of British Columbia. There was no statistical difference among the mean ranks of the number of shoots/quadrat at any distance from the cable. However, high variability and small sample sizes might have masked any effect because multiple comparison tests did show that the mean rank of the number of shoots/quadrat at the cable (0m) was lower than the mean rank of the number of shoots/quadrat at all other distances from the cable. The data show that eelgrass beds have a high degree of ecological variability, and, therefore, large sample sizes are required to assess any biological significance.