PIF2025 - Efectos del cambio global en la reproducción de fanerógamas marinas - (PID2024-160458OB-I00)

Seagrasses create critical coastal habitats worldwide and provide numerous and key ecological functions and socio-economical services, rendering them as one of the most valuable ecosystems on earth. Seagrasses are facing the cumulative effects of anthropogenic stressors, which is leading to habitat loss and to local/regional extirpation. Given their ecological and socio-economic importance, seagrass conservation and restoration are global priorities recognized by the UN (www.decadeonrestoration.org), and thus contributing to identifying the drivers of seagrass recovery in this context of global change and global losses is urgent and imperative. This research will significantly enhance our understanding of sexual and asexual reproduction in seagrasses (which remain highly understudied compared to terrestrial plants) as key recovery mechanisms under global change stressors. In particular through field (in situ using scuba) and mesocosm experiments, in situ monitoring, laboratory analyses and literature research, the thesis will analyse how different factors (e.g., warming, ocean acidification, nutrient pollution) affect the capacity of seagrasses to reproduce sexually.