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Seagrass meadows provide important ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, coastal protection from erosion, and sustained biodiversity and fisheries thereby improving the wellbeing and livelihoods of coastal communities. The erosion of millenary deposits of intertwined roots and rhizomes of Posidonia results in the formation of three-dimensional structures named escarpments that constitute a biogenic reef habitat. However, the natural history of seagrass escarpments including their formation processes and their role as habitat for reef fauna and flora remains poorly understood. This research located and characterized Posidonia oceanica escarpments in Menorca (Balearic Islands) and compared structural complexity and fish assemblages among seagrass escarpments, seagrass meadows, rocky substrates and bare sand with emphasis on its role as habitat and shelter for typical rocky fish. Fish abundance and biomass were similar between seagrass escarpments and rocky substrates (P > 0.05), but significantly lower in seagrass meadows (P < 0.001). The large number of caves found along seagrass escarpments provide shelter to fish, including species only associated to rocky substrates. Seagrass meadows form a rather homogenous habitat within their canopy, but the presence of seagrass escarpments enhances habitat heterogeneity and structural complexity along with fish abundance and biomass at the seascape level. This study enhances understanding on the ecological importance of seagrass escarpments.

Assessing historical environmental conditions linked to habitat colonization is important for understanding long-term resilience and improving conservation and restoration efforts. Such information is lacking for the seagrass Zostera marina, an important foundation species across cold-temperate coastal areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Here, we reconstructed environmental conditions during the last 14,000 years from sediment cores in two eelgrass (Z. marina) meadows along the Swedish west coast, with the main aims to identify the time frame of seagrass colonization and describe subsequent biogeochemical changes following establishment. Based on vegetation proxies (lipid biomarkers), eelgrass colonization occurred about 2,000 years ago after geomorphological changes that resulted in a shallow, sheltered environment favoring seagrass growth. Seagrass establishment led to up to 20- and 24-fold increases in sedimentary carbon and nitrogen accumulation rates, respectively. This demonstrates the capacity of seagrasses as efficient ecosystem engineers and their role in global change mitigation and adaptation through CO2 removal, and nutrient and sediment retention. By combining regional climate projections and landscape models, we assessed potential climate change effects on seagrass growth, productivity and distribution until 2100. These predictions showed that seagrass meadows are mostly at risk from increased sedimentation and hydrodynamic changes, while the impact from sea level rise alone might be of less importance in the studied area. This study showcases the positive feedback between seagrass colonization and environmental conditions, which holds promise for successful conservation and restoration efforts aimed at supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the provision of several other crucial ecosystem services.

This paper aims to provide an innovative and original solution to the need for decent accommodation for agricultural workers living in shacks and substandard housing from a multidisciplinary perspective (socio-economic, legal-tax and architectural) on the basis of the so-called Nuclei of Transitional Accommodation for Integration, making it possible to finance their implementation from the agricultural cooperative sector, through the education and promotion fund, in compliance with the cooperative principle of community interest and the requirements of corporate social responsibility. The materialization of this objective in collaboration with institutions and entities of the Third Sector would allow the cooperatives to take advantage of the extensive tax benefits contained in the Ley de Régimen Fiscal de Entidades Sin Ánimo de Lucro, in addition to reinforcing productivity, social integration and the image of the Spanish agricultural industry. The proposal includes an architectural design based on the construction technique applied in the superadobe domes, intended to provide accommodation and services for 500 people in a parcel formed by different groups of quality bioclimatic buildings, simple, low cost and quick construction, covering all the necessary parameters in terms of health, safety, energy and thermal efficiency, anti-fire measures and high seismic resistance, adaptable to various needs, which makes this model a solution to the housing problem in general. Precisely, the sustainability, aesthetics and inclusiveness of the proposal have made it worthy of the support of the European Commission, through the local initiatives of the New European Bauhaus., El presente trabajo busca ofrecer una solución innovadora y original a la necesidad de alojamiento digno para los trabajadores agrícolas que habitan en chabolas e infraviviendas desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar (socioeconómica, jurídico-tributaria y arquitectónica) sobre la base de los denominados Núcleos de Alojamientos Transitorios de Integración, posibilitando la financiación de su implementación desde el sector cooperativo agrícola, mediante el fondo de educación y promoción, en cumplimiento del principio cooperativo de interés por la comunidad y las exigencias de la responsabilidad social corporativa y la cadena de valor. La materialización de este objetivo en colaboración con instituciones y entidades del Tercer Sector permitiría a las cooperativas acogerse a los amplios beneficios fiscales contenidos en la Ley de Régimen Fiscal de Entidades Sin Ánimo de Lucro, además de reforzar la productividad, la integración social y la imagen de la industria agrícola española. La propuesta incluye un diseño arquitectónico basado en la técnica constructiva aplicada en los domos de superadobe, destinado a dar alojamiento y servicios a 500 personas en una manzana formada por diferentes grupos de edificaciones bioclimáticas de calidad, sencillas, de bajo coste y rápida construcción, que cubren todos los parámetros necesarios en cuanto a salubridad, seguridad, eficiencia energética y térmica, medidas anti-incendios y alta resistencia sísmica, adaptables a diversas necesidades, lo que convierte a este modelo en una solución al problema de la vivienda en general. Precisamente, las características de sostenibilidad, estética e inclusión de la propuesta la han hecho merecedora del apoyo de la Comisión Europea, a través de las iniciativas locales de la Nueva Bauhaus Europea.

Seagrass meadows are effective carbon sinks due to high primary production and sequestration in sediments. However, methane (CH4) emissions can partially counteract their carbon sink capacity. Here, we measured diffusive sediment-water and sea-air CO2 and CH4 fluxes in a coastal embayment dominated by Posidonia oceanica in the Mediterranean Sea. High-resolution timeseries observations revealed large spatial and temporal variability in CH4 concentrations (2–36 nM). Lower sea-air CH4 emissions were observed in an area with dense seagrass meadows compared to patchy seagrass. A 6%−40% decrease of CH4 concentration in the surface water around noon indicates that photosynthesis likely limits CH4 fluxes. Sediments were the major CH4 source as implied from radon (a natural porewater tracer) observations and evidence for methanogenesis in deeper sediments. CH4 sediment-water fluxes (0.1 ± 0.1–0.4 ± 0.1 mol m−2 d−1) were higher than average sea-air CH4 emissions (0.12 ± 0.10 mol m−2 d−1), suggesting that dilution and CH4 oxidation in the water column could reduce net CH4 fluxes into the atmosphere. Overall, relatively low sea-air CH4 fluxes likely represent the net emissions from subtidal seagrass habitat not influenced by allochthonous CH4 sources. The local CH4 emissions in P. oceanica can offset less than 1% of the carbon burial in sediments (142 ± 69 g CO2eq m−2 yr−1). Combining our results with earlier observations in other seagrass meadows worldwide reveals that global CH4 emissions only offset a small fraction ( < 2%) of carbon sequestration in sediments from seagrass meadows.

Sandy beaches are iconic interfaces that functionally link the ocean with the land via the flow of organic matter from the sea. These cross-ecosystem fluxes often comprise uprooted seagrass and dislodged macroalgae that can form substantial accumulations of detritus, termed ‘wrack’, on sandy beaches. In addition, the tissue of the carcasses of marine animals that regularly wash up on beaches form a rich food source (‘carrion’) for a diversity of scavenging animals. Here, we provide a global review of how wrack and carrion provide spatial subsidies that shape the structure and functioning of sandy-beach ecosystems (sandy beaches and adjacent surf zones), which typically have little in situ primary production. We also examine the spatial scaling of the influence of these processes across the broader land- and seascape, and identify key gaps in our knowledge to guide future research directions and priorities. Large quantities of detrital kelp and seagrass can flow into sandy-beach ecosystems, where microbial decomposers and animals process it. The rates of wrack supply and its retention are influenced by the oceanographic processes that transport it, the geomorphology and landscape context of the recipient beaches, and the condition, life history and morphological characteristics of the macrophyte taxa that are the ultimate source of wrack. When retained in beach ecosystems, wrack often creates hotspots of microbial metabolism, secondary productivity, biodiversity, and nutrient remineralization. Nutrients are produced during wrack breakdown, and these can return to coastal waters in surface flows (swash) and aquifers discharging into the subtidal surf. Beach-cast kelp often plays a key trophic role, being an abundant and preferred food source for mobile, semi-aquatic invertebrates that channel imported algal matter to predatory invertebrates, fish, and birds. The role of beach-cast marine carrion is likely to be underestimated, as it can be consumed rapidly by highly m

Sandy beaches are iconic interfaces that functionally link the ocean with the land via the flow of organic matter from the sea. These cross-ecosystem fluxes often comprise uprooted seagrass and dislodged macroalgae that can form substantial accumulations of detritus, termed ‘wrack’, on sandy beaches. In addition, the tissue of the carcasses of marine animals that regularly wash up on beaches form a rich food source (‘carrion’) for a diversity of scavenging animals. Here, we provide a global review of how wrack and carrion provide spatial subsidies that shape the structure and functioning of sandy-beach ecosystems (sandy beaches and adjacent surf zones), which typically have little in situ primary production. We also examine the spatial scaling of the influence of these processes across the broader land- and seascape, and identify key gaps in our knowledge to guide future research directions and priorities. Large quantities of detrital kelp and seagrass can flow into sandy-beach ecosystems, where microbial decomposers and animals process it. The rates of wrack supply and its retention are influenced by the oceanographic processes that transport it, the geomorphology and landscape context of the recipient beaches, and the condition, life history and morphological characteristics of the macrophyte taxa that are the ultimate source of wrack. When retained in beach ecosystems, wrack often creates hotspots of microbial metabolism, secondary productivity, biodiversity, and nutrient remineralization. Nutrients are produced during wrack breakdown, and these can return to coastal waters in surface flows (swash) and aquifers discharging into the subtidal surf. Beach-cast kelp often plays a key trophic role, being an abundant and preferred food source for mobile, semi-aquatic invertebrates that channel imported algal matter to predatory invertebrates, fish, and birds. The role of beach-cast marine carrion is likely to be underestimated, as it can be consumed rapidly by highly m

The introduction and successful expansion of tropical species into temperate systems is being exacerbated by climate change, and it is particularly important to identify the impacts that those species may have, especially when habitat-forming species are involved. Seagrass meadows are key shallow coastal habitats that provide critical ecosystem services worldwide, and they are threatened by the arrival of non-native macroalgae. Here, we examined the effects of Halimeda incrassata, a tropical alga that has recently colonized the Mediterranean Sea, on epifaunal assemblages associated with Cymodocea nodosa seagrass meadows of Mallorca Island (Western Mediterranean Sea). This invasive macroalga is an ecological engineer and thus has a high potential of modifying native habitats. A seagrass meadow colonized by H. incrassata exhibited important changes on associated epifaunal assemblages, with an increase in abundance and diversity, particularly driven by higher abundances of Gammaridae, Polychaeta, Copepoda and Caprellidae. Given the key ecological contribution of epifauna to food webs, these alterations will likely have important implications for overall food web structure and ecosystem functioning of native ecosystems.

Las instituciones educativas, tanto públicas como privadas, utilizan Entornos Virtuales de Aprendizaje, cuyas capacidades han evolucionado hasta el punto de poder obtener y almacenar información acerca del acceso que hacen lo usuarios tanto del Entorno Virtual de Aprendizaje como de los recursos que administra (ficheros en formato pdf, vídeos, etcétera). Llamamos huellas digitales a la información acerca del acceso al entorno y a los recursos. La cantidad de datos que estas huellas llegan a generar puede ser abrumadora, por tal motivo, para poder analizar dicha información y presentarla de forma visual, se pueden utilizar herramientas para la creación de tableros de control, por ejemplo: PowerBI, Google Data Studio, etcétera. A nivel educativo, utilizando la analítica del aprendizaje para estudiar y analizar el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes de un curso en particular, es posible encontrar justificaciones de los resultados utilizando los datos generados por esas huellas digitales, lo que puede ser de gran ayuda para mejorar el proceso de aprendizaje-enseñanza. Por ejemplo, un profesor podría justificar el hecho que la nota promedio del grupo A, sea más baja que la del Grupo B, si las huellas indican que el acceso a los recursos por el grupo A es claramente inferior. Uno de los objetivos de este trabajo es que los profesores universitarios utilicen la analítica del aprendizaje y hagan uso de las huellas que dejan los alumnos para justificar los resultados académicos de alumnado, e incluso para plantearse realizar cambios en el temario o mejorar recursos que nunca son accedidos.

Seagrasses are a polyphyletic group of angiosperms that colonized marine environments more than 30 million years ago and currently inhabit coastal soft and rocky substrates in all continents except Antarctica. Due to their evolution from terrestrial plants, seagrasses have belowground organs that interact with the substrate, trans- forming it through chemo-physical processes analogous to terrestrial soil formation. Although seagrass substrates provide valuable ecosystem services including carbon and coastal stabilization, they have been largely regarded as sediments by marine scientists and neglected in soil science research. However, over the last decades, the increasing interest in carbon accumulation by seagrasses has generated multiple data on seagrass soil physical and chemical characteristics. Here, we review clay and silt content (<0.063 mm particle size), redox potential, pH, carbonate content, organic carbon or organic matter contents, dry bulk density, porosity and color of sea- grass soils worldwide, summarizing data typically used for soil description, and looking for generalities in soil characteristics across seagrass habitats. The data gathered was biased towards temperate species and high- income countries, while data about color, porosity, redox potential and pH was scarce. Soil characteristics did not show significant differences among seagrass bioregions. Most seagrass substrates showed sandy textures, whereas one of the most sampled genera, Posidonia, was not present in muddy substrates. The soil Corg content was significantly higher in meadows formed by persistent species (mean ± SD; 1.76 ± 2.17 %) than in meadows formed by species with opportunistic and colonizing life-strategies (1.52 ± 2.24 and 0.76 ± 0.95 %, respec- tively), while mud content was significantly higher in meadows formed by opportunistic and colonizing species (27.87 ± 29.58 and 21.23 ± 21.77 %, respectively) than in those formed by persistent species (11.83 ± 14.45 %). Redox p

The introduction and successful expansion of tropical species into temperate systems is being exacerbated by climate change, and it is particularly important to identify the impacts that those species may have, especially when habitat-forming species are involved. Seagrass meadows are key shallow coastal habitats that provide critical ecosystem services worldwide, and they are threatened by the arrival of non-native macroalgae. Here, we examined the effects of Halimeda incrassata, a tropical alga that has recently colonized the Mediterranean Sea, on epifaunal assemblages associated with Cymodocea nodosa seagrass meadows of Mallorca Island (Western Mediterranean Sea). This invasive macroalga is an ecological engineer and thus has a high potential of modifying native habitats. A seagrass meadow colonized by H. incrassata exhibited important changes on associated epifaunal assemblages, with an increase in abundance and diversity, particularly driven by higher abundances of Gammaridae, Polychaeta, Copepoda and Caprellidae. Given the key ecological contribution of epifauna to food webs, these alterations will likely have important implications for overall food web structure and ecosystem functioning of native ecosystems.