Proceedings of the Mediterranean Seagrass Workshop 2006

Abstract

The Mediterranean Seagrass Workshop 2006 was convened in response to the need to promote a periodic event that would host scientists interested in Mediter- ranean seagrasses, and international scientists who are involved in projects that are focused on the Mediterranean marine environment, to discuss current knowl- edge and present the findings of their latest research. The concept of holding an international meeting originated during the Inter- national Seagrass Biology Workshop (ISBW6) held in 2004 in Queensland, Aus- tralia. In particular, one of the goals of ISBW6 was to identify key ecological issues and environmental trends within a number of geographical regions. This stimulated the idea of taking such topic to a higher level; the Mediterranean scale. The Mediterranean Sea is a rare and vulnerable ecoregion, one of the planet’s biodiversity hot spots, where many of the species present are endemic (around 20%). The Mediterranean Sea also has a millenarian history of human use of its coasts. However, the current exponential increase of human pressure on the coastal zone for living space, transportation, recreation and food production is expected to have dramatic long-term impacts on the Mediterranean marine envi- ronment. Being located in shallow coastal areas close to human settlement, sea- grasses are bearing the brunt of disturbance from such anthropogenic activities, with the result that degradation and loss of seagrass habitats is widespread in the whole Mediterranean Sea. Thus, there is great concern that the functions which seagrasses have performed in the Mediterranean marine ecosystem will be weak- ened or, in some places, lost altogether.