Community-based monitoring detects catastrophic earthquake and tsunami impacts on seagrass beds in the Solomon Islands

Tetepare Island in the Solomon Islands is the largest uninhabited island in the South Pacific and supports seagrass beds inside fringing reefs along its coastline. We monitored the diversity and abundance of seagrass species on Tetepare and nearby sparsely-populated Rendova Island over a 12 year per...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine pollution bulletin 2020-01, Vol.150, p.110444-110444, Article 110444
Main Authors: Moseby, K.E., Daniels, A., Duri, V., Tropa, W., Welma, S., Bero, A., Soapi, K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Community Participation
Coral reefs
Earthquake
Earthquakes
Ecosystem
Environmental Monitoring
Fringing reefs
Islands
Long term changes
Marine Protected Area
Melanesia
Monitoring
Population decline
Sea grasses
Seagrass
Seismic activity
Species diversity
Species richness
Subsidence
Tetepare
Tsunami wave
Tsunamis
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Summary:Tetepare Island in the Solomon Islands is the largest uninhabited island in the South Pacific and supports seagrass beds inside fringing reefs along its coastline. We monitored the diversity and abundance of seagrass species on Tetepare and nearby sparsely-populated Rendova Island over a 12 year period, 4 years before and up to 8 years after a major earthquake and tsunami event in January 2010. Both seagrass cover and diversity declined after the tsunami and had not reached pre-Tsunami levels after 8 years. Seagrass cover declined the fastest at sites on Rendova, closest to the epicentre, declining from 50% to
ISSN:0025-326X
1879-3363
DOI:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.07.032