Temperature extremes reduce seagrass growth and induce mortality

摘要

Extreme heating (up to 43 ℃ measured from five-year temperature records) occurs in shallow coastal seagrass meadows of the Great Barrier Reef at low tide. We measured effective quantum yield (φ_(PSII)). growth, senescence and mortality in four tropical seagrasses to experimental short-duration (2.5 h) spikes in water temperature to 35 ℃, 40 ℃ and 43 ℃, for 6 days followed by one day at ambient temperature. Increasing temperature to 35 ℃ had positive effects on φ_(PSII) (the magnitude varied between days and was highly correlated with PPFD), with no effects on growth or mortality. 40 ℃ represented a critical threshold as there were strong species differences and there was a large impact on growth and mortality. At 43 ℃ there was complete mortality after 2-3 days. These findings indicate that increasing duration (more days in a row) of thermal events above 40 ℃ is likely to affect the ecological function of tropical seagrass meadows.