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Review

Significant decline in the seaweed and seagrass communities in Kagoshima, Kyushu Island, Japan
Ryuta Terada1*
1United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kagoshima University, Korimoto 1-21-24, Kagoshima City, Kagoshima Prefecture, 890-0065, Japan
*Corresponding Author
28 February 2025. pp. 20-26
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Abstract

In Japan, the nationwide long-term monitoring survey for seaweed and seagrass communities (Monitoring-Site 1000, Ministry of Environment, Government of Japan) has been conducted at 12 sites since 2008. In Kagoshima Prefecture, located in the southern part of Kyushu Island, a temperate kelp species, Ecklonia radicosa (Kjellman) Okamura (in Nagashima Island), and a seagrass, Zostera marina Linnaeus (in Kagoshima Bay), have been investigated annually over the past 15 years as part of this long-term survey. These communities are considered particularly important because they are situated near their southern distributional limit. However, both communities disappeared in the late 2010s and have not yet recovered. In response to their disappearance, broader distributional surveys were conducted: in 2019 for E. radicosa and in 2021 for Z. marina. The results revealed that E. radicosa had completely disappeared from the coast of Nagashima Island facing the East China Sea despite its distribution in the 2005 survey. It now persists only in sheltered areas of Yatsushiro Bay. Similarly, Z. marina had widely disappeared from Kagoshima Bay despite its distribution in the 2006 survey. Additionally, the area of the seagrass community in Kagoshima Bay was estimated to be 4.39 hectares in the 2019 survey, representing only 11.6% of the area observed in 2006 and a mere 2.4% of the area recorded in 1978.

Keywords
Algae
Climate change
Ecklonia radicosa
kelp
Zostera marina
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Information
  • Publisher :Jeju Journal of Island Sciences
  • Publisher(Ko) :제주섬과학회지
  • Journal Title :Jeju Journal of Island Sciences
  • Journal Title(Ko) :제주섬과학회지
  • Volume : 2
  • No :1
  • Pages :20-26
  • Received Date : 2025-01-09
  • Revised Date : 2025-02-24
  • Accepted Date : 2025-02-24
  • DOI :https://doi.org/10.23264/JJIS.2025.2.1.020
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