Author(s): Haiying Lin·Tao Sun
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Coastal estuarine wetland; Seagrass; Heavy metals; Growth model
Abstract: Seagrass declines have been due to many factors that attribute both natural and anthropic contributions. Of all human impacts, eutrophication is considered to have the most widespread impact on seagrass, whereas toxic chemicals, such as heavy metals, herbicides and pesticides, and petrochemicals are also thought to be major factors. Most of the heavy metals research has focused on the accumulation of metals into seagrass. Scientific knowledge on several issues of metal affect seagrass growth is limited. And seagrass growth models in prior studies had investigated the single and coupled relationship between lights change and nutrients in regions which seldom consider influences of pollution factors such as heavy metals. In this study, we developed a dynamic model for predicting influences of heavy metals in the growth of seagrass photosynthesis, respiration, and sloughing dynamics as well as by rate at which carbon is transported between roots to shoot processes. The heavy metal as the variables is introduced into the processes of photosynthesis. Effect of different concentrations of heavy metals were included in the relationship between the heavy metals concentrations and seagrass biomass. Overall, the results indicated that the developed model is a viable method to determine the relationship between seagrass growth and distributions of heavy metals under effects of human activities in estuarine wetlands.
Year: 2015