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Wooramel Seagrass Bank
Wooramel Seagrass Bank is a large deposit of carbonate sediment, a sand bank, formed by diverse communities of seagrasses off the coast of Carnarvon, Western Australia. The mattes of seagrass meadows and stands consolidate a shallow platform of sandy substrate by acting as an organic baffle against currents and tides. These colonies provide food and shelter to many of the species within the Shark Bay Marine Park. The bank occurs in the easternmost bay of the Shark Bay World Heritage area. It is a structure 129 kilometres long and around 8 kilometres wide, comprising various communities on sand plains, tidal channels and other coastal habitats. The space taken up is 1030 km2, making it the largest seagrass bank in the world. The only other comparable structure is found in the Mediterranean. Shark Bay has the largest number of seagrass species recorded in one area. Twelve species have been identified in the area, with nine species being found in some locations. The stands or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the order Alismatales (in the clade of monocotyledons). Seagrasses evolved from terrestrial plants which recolonised the ocean 70 to 100 million years ago. The name ''seagrass'' stems from the many species with long and narrow leaves, which grow by rhizome extension and often spread across large "meadows" resembling grassland; many species superficially resemble terrestrial grasses of the family Poaceae. Like all autotrophic plants, seagrasses photosynthesize, in the submerged photic zone, and most occur in shallow and sheltered coastal waters anchored in sand or mud bottoms. Most species undergo submarine pollination and complete their life cycle underwater. While it was previously believed this pollination was carried out without pollinators ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
