[Coral-List] Sargassum and consequences

Marie Thabard marie.thabard at gmail.com
Tue Sep 20 15:55:48 EDT 2011


Dear all,

We are in charge of surveying the Martinique coasts after the «sargassum
event ». So far, some mangroves and seagrass beds of the Atlantic coast were
observed.

Regarding mangroves, the trees do not seem to be damaged by the algal
decomposition but some crabs were found dead  and the water turned white
(milky) in some areas probably because of the sulforeducing bacteria.

Concerning seagrass beds which were concerned by sargassum, the phenomenon
is more alarming;  Seagrass beds of Thalassia testudinum are bleached and
numerous invertebrates were dead such as the sea urchin (Lytechinus
variegatus), the conch, and the sea cucumbers.

 These are just the first observations and surveys are currently being
carried out to get more information (qualitative and quantitative) .

Has anybody made such observations in other islands?

Impact-Mer

(M. Thabard, M. Herteman)


contact at impact-mer.fr



Impact-Mer is a French Company working in marine environmental research in
the Lesser Antilles and Caribbean since 1990's.


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