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Sun, 14th Mar 2021 12:29:00 |
Climate change: 'Forever plant' seagrass faces uncertain future |
The green, underwater meadows of Posidonia seagrass that surround the Balearic Islands are one of the world's most powerful, natural defences against climate change.
A hectare of this ancient, delicate plant can soak up 15 times more carbon dioxide every year than a similar sized piece of the Amazon rainforest.
But this global treasure is now under extreme pressure from tourists, from development and ironically from climate change.
Posidonia oceanica is found all over the Mediterranean but the area between Mallorca and Formentera is of special interest, having been designated a world heritage site by Unesco over 20 years ago.
Here you'll find around 55,000 hectares of the plant, which helps prevent coastal erosion, acts as a nursery for fish, but also plays a globally significant role in soaking up CO2.
"These seagrass meadows are the champion of carbon sequestration for the biosphere," said Prof Carlos Duarte, of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.
He's recently published the first global scientific assessment of the environmental value of Unesco's marine world heritage sites.
"Posidonia acts as a very intensive sediment trap and captures carbon into these sediments. It is also very resistant to microbial degradation, so the carbon is not degraded when it's deposited on the sea floor. And much of that stays unaltered during decades to millennia."
Depending on the water temperature, the species reproduces either sexually through flowering or asexually by cloning itself. This ability to clone itself means it can live an extremely long time.
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