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Submerged benthic macrophytes in Mediterranean lagoons: distribution patterns in relation to water chemistry and depth

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Abstract

A large spectrum of coastal lagoon types with a wide range of environmental conditions is observed along the French Mediterranean coast. These comprise wide trophic and salinity gradients, ranging from oligotrophic to hypertrophic status, and from nearly freshwater to slightly above marine Mediterranean Sea water salinities, respectively. The statistical analysis of a long-term dataset, including water column variables and observations of macrophyte genera, showed that salinity, depth, and then trophic status, were important factors explaining the distribution of benthic macrophytes for the soft-bottom sediments in the 34 studied French Mediterranean lagoons. Based on this, we assumed that the vegetation succession along the eutrophication gradient was different according to the lagoon salinity ranges. Euhaline and polyhaline lagoons follow the well-known Schramm schematic model, where aquatic angiosperm such as seagrasses dominate under oligotrophic conditions, and opportunistic macroalgae and phytoplankton dominate under eutrophic and hypertrophic conditions. In oligohaline and mesohaline lagoons, the succession is probably an intermediate scheme between the successions observed in small temperate lakes and in marine coastal ecosystems due to the presence of both brackish and freshwater species. We thus propose a conceptual scheme for the oligohaline and mesohaline lagoons.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a Ph.D. Grant for Ines Le Fur, financed by Ifremer and the French Water Agency (Agence de l’Eau Rhône Méditerranée Corse). The authors thank the staff of the Ifremer laboratory in Languedoc-Roussillon and PACA, the Tour du Valat institute, lagoons managers of the GIPREB and of the Réserve Nationale de Camargue and all surveyors involved in the collection of the data on which this article is based.

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Correspondence to Ines Le Fur.

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Le Fur, I., De Wit, R., Plus, M. et al. Submerged benthic macrophytes in Mediterranean lagoons: distribution patterns in relation to water chemistry and depth. Hydrobiologia 808, 175–200 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-017-3421-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-017-3421-y

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