Review of the physical and chemical properties of seagrass soils

• Published in: Geoderma 2022-12, Vol.428, p.116219, Article 116219
• Main Authors: Piñeiro-Juncal, Nerea, Serrano, Oscar, Mateo, Miguel Ángel, Diaz-Almela, Elena, Leiva-Dueñas, Carmen, Martinez-Cortizas, Antonio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Blue carbon; bulk density; carbonates; clay; color; ecosystems; Grain size; littoral zone; Marine phanerogams; organic carbon; particle size; polyphyly; porosity; Posidonia; redox potential; Seagrass sediments; seagrasses; silt fraction; soil formation; species diversity; Subaqueous soils
• ISSN: 0016-7061; 1872-6259; 1872-6259
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.116219

•Seagrass soils have been neglected in soil science but widely studied as sediments.•Published values for the main seagrass soil characteristics have been gathered.•Soil seagrass data is biased towards temperate species and high-income countries.•Soils under persistent seagrass species showed higher organic carbon and sandier textures.•Seagrass biological traits drive differences in soil physical and chemical properties. 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, transforming 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 (