190
P. Thiriet et al.
Box 3: The nursery role of Mediterranean Posidonia oceanica seagrass
meadows—from Guidetti (2000)
Guidetti (2000) highlighted the higher nursery value for some fish species of
Posidonia meadows in comparison to some neighboring habitats: juveniles
of Symphodus ocellatus, S. mediterraneus, Serranus cabrilla, Diplodus annularis, Spondyliosoma cantharus and Sarpa salpa were significantly more
abundant over P. oceanica meadows (black bars) than over sand habitat or
rocky-algal bottom (i.e. gently sloping hard substrate covered by a dense erect
assemblage of articulated Corallinaceae and Cystoseira spp.). Contrastingly,
juveniles of Chromis chromis inhabited predominantly rocky-algal bottoms.
Small individuals of Coris julis were censused over both P. oceanica and rockyalgal habitats. Bare sand did not host any juveniles among these species. The
author suggested that differences in fish species richness and abundance are
primarily related to habitat tri-dimensional structure.
Mean density (mean number of individuals of juveniles 40 m
−2 ) of common fish species. Bars
indicate standard deviations
P. Thiriet et al.
Box 3: The nursery role of Mediterranean Posidonia oceanica seagrass
meadows—from Guidetti (2000)
Guidetti (2000) highlighted the higher nursery value for some fish species of
Posidonia meadows in comparison to some neighboring habitats: juveniles
of Symphodus ocellatus, S. mediterraneus, Serranus cabrilla, Diplodus annularis, Spondyliosoma cantharus and Sarpa salpa were significantly more
abundant over P. oceanica meadows (black bars) than over sand habitat or
rocky-algal bottom (i.e. gently sloping hard substrate covered by a dense erect
assemblage of articulated Corallinaceae and Cystoseira spp.). Contrastingly,
juveniles of Chromis chromis inhabited predominantly rocky-algal bottoms.
Small individuals of Coris julis were censused over both P. oceanica and rockyalgal habitats. Bare sand did not host any juveniles among these species. The
author suggested that differences in fish species richness and abundance are
primarily related to habitat tri-dimensional structure.
Mean density (mean number of individuals of juveniles 40 m
−2 ) of common fish species. Bars
indicate standard deviations