WA Department of Water, PO Box K822, Perth, WA 6842, Australia.
School of Natural Sciences and Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research, Edith Cowan University, WA 6027, Australia.
Sci Total Environ. 2015 Nov 15;534:97-109. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.04.061. Epub 2015 Apr 25.
Environmental decision-making applies transdisciplinary knowledge to deliver optimal outcomes. Here we synthesise various aspects of seagrass ecology to aid environmental decision-making, management and policy. Managers often mediate conflicting values and opinions held by different stakeholders. Critical to this role is understanding the drivers for change, effects of management actions and societal benefits. We use the diversity of seagrass habitats in Australia to demonstrate that knowledge from numerous fields is required to understand seagrass condition and resilience. Managers are often time poor and need access to synthesised assessments, commonly referred to as narratives. However, there is no single narrative for management of seagrass habitats in Australia, due to the diversity of seagrass meadows and dominant pressures. To assist the manager, we developed a classification structure based on attributes of seagrass life history, habitat and meadow form. Seagrass communities are formed from species whose life history strategies can be described as colonising, opportunistic or persistent. They occupy habitats defined by the range and variability of their abiotic environment. This results in seagrass meadows that are either transitory or enduring. Transitory meadows may come and go and able to re-establish from complete loss through sexual reproduction. Enduring meadows may fluctuate in biomass but maintain a presence by resisting pressures across multiple scales. This contrast reflects the interaction between the spatial and temporal aspects of species life history and habitat variability. Most management and monitoring strategies in place today favour enduring seagrasses. We adopt a functional classification of seagrass habitats based on modes of resilience to inform management for all seagrass communities. These concepts have world-wide relevance as the Australian case-studies have many analogues throughout the world. Additionally, the approach used to classify primary scientific knowledge into synthesised categories to aid management has value for many other disciplines interfacing with environmental decision-making.
环境决策应用跨学科知识以实现最佳结果。在这里，我们综合了各种海草生态学方面的知识，以帮助进行环境决策、管理和政策制定。管理者通常需要协调不同利益相关者之间存在的冲突价值观和意见。理解变革的驱动因素、管理行动的效果和社会利益对于这一角色至关重要。我们利用澳大利亚各种海草生境的多样性，证明了需要从多个领域获取知识，以了解海草的状况和恢复力。管理者通常时间紧迫，需要获取综合评估，通常称为叙述。然而，由于澳大利亚的海草草甸多样性和主要压力，不存在单一的管理叙述。为了帮助管理者，我们根据海草生活史、生境和草甸形态的属性，开发了一种分类结构。海草群落由具有殖民、机会主义或持久生活史策略的物种组成。它们占据由其非生物环境的范围和可变性定义的栖息地。这导致海草草甸要么是短暂的，要么是持久的。短暂的草甸可能会出现和消失，并且能够通过有性繁殖从完全损失中重新建立。持久的草甸可能会在生物量上波动，但通过在多个尺度上抵抗压力来保持存在。这种对比反映了物种生活史和栖息地变异性的空间和时间方面之间的相互作用。今天大多数管理和监测策略都倾向于持久的海草。我们根据对弹性的作用模式，对海草生境进行功能分类，为所有海草群落提供管理信息。这些概念在全球范围内具有相关性，因为澳大利亚的案例研究在全球范围内有许多类似的案例。此外，将主要科学知识分类为综合类别以辅助管理的方法对于与环境决策相关的许多其他学科也具有价值。
