🌱 Results? Seagrass meadows store 5× more carbon than bare sediments, with seagrasses as the main contributors.

🙌 Huge collaborative effort, and such a proud moment to see Márcio leading this.

📖 Read it in Aquatic Sciences: lnkd.in/dnAfqgVG

Hecho! Gracias por tu interés 🙂

🗝️ If you can't access it, email the corresponding author or me, we’ll gladly send you a PDF copy.

It was! I remember a smooth review process :-) MEPS is also my favorite journal. I dream of being editor one day for it!

This work was mainly supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (BLUEPORT CEECIND contract) and the FAM Foundation.

Read the full paper here:
🔗 lnkd.in/d9WdrRwX

Thanks to all the team involved (Márcio Martins, Simon von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, Rui Santos), with a special mention to Paula Ito, for whom this is her first scientific paper; she did an outstanding job! 👏 💯

With 1,231 ha of seagrass left in the Algarve, 99% of which is in the Ria Formosa, our study highlights the need for sustained conservation efforts to protect these invaluable ecosystems.

📌 An estimated 20% decline in seagrass extent since the last mapping effort (~two decades), reinforcing the urgency of standardized, long-term monitoring.

📌 Seagrass meadows persist mainly in the Ria Formosa lagoon and the Guadiana estuary, with only sparse patches in the Ria de Alvor and no meadows in the Arade estuary.

📌 A critical lack of historical data, with scattered records and inconsistent mapping methods.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support of FAM Foundation: thank you for believing in our work and making this research possible!

It has been an honour to collaborate with Nuno Vasco Rodrigues, Carla Lourenço, and Daniel Santos, whose talent and dedication brought this story to life. A huge shoutout to my amazing research team too, the best I could ask for!