Global challenges for seagrass conservation

. 2018 Nov 19;48(8):801–815. doi: 10.1007/s13280-018-1115-y

Box 3 Increasing imbalance in seagrass research funding and effort
A decade ago, Duarte et al. (2008) (Duarte et al. 2008) demonstrated that coral reefs received far more research effort and media attention than seagrasses, mangroves and salt marshes. This is despite the wide occurrence and societal importance of all four ecosystems. Here, we show that although there has been a considerable increase in seagrass research and conservation effort, the imbalance has in fact increased over time. This involves both research funding, effort, and the proportion of general ecology and ecosystem research that this effort constitutes. First, data on private research and conservation funding 2006–2016 (retrieved from the Foundation Center database: foundationcenter.org) show that the number of grants and the total funding to grants including the word ‘coral’ exceeded those to ‘seagrass’, ‘mangrove’ and ‘marsh’ grants by 1–2 orders of magnitude (Fig. 2a). Moreover, the ‘coral’ grants were allocated to > 1 order of magnitude more recipients (researchers, practitioners, etc.). Second, data on research effort over the past 25 years (estimated as yearly number of publications in ISI Web of Science during 1992–2016) show that publications including the word ‘coral’ in title, abstract or keywords not only dominate (Fig. 2b), but that ‘coral’ and ‘mangrove’ research effort has grown exponentially. At the same time, ‘seagrass’ and ‘salt marsh’ effort has only grown linearly and considerably slower. Finally controlling for the fact that ecology and ecosystem science in general has grown considerably (by calculating what proportion* of yearly publications retrieved using the search string ‘ecosystem* OR ecolog* OR species’ that also included the words ‘coral’, ‘mangrove’, ‘seagrass’ or ‘salt marsh*’), a striking pattern emerges. The proportion of publications increased more or less linearly for all four ecosystems until the mid 2000s (indicating an increasing interest for and/or effort in coastal ecosystem research), after which the proportion of ‘coral’ and ‘mangrove’ research effort kept rising, but the proportion of ‘seagrass’ and ‘salt marsh’ publications instead levelled off and decreased. Together, these results suggest that seagrass (as well as salt marsh) research and conservation is underfunded, conducted by fewer people, and grows at an increasingly slower rate, than that on coral reefs (and to a lesser extent mangrove) (Fig. 2).

Box 3 Increasing imbalance in seagrass research funding and effort

A decade ago, Duarte et al. (2008) (Duarte et al. 2008) demonstrated that coral reefs received far more research effort and media attention than seagrasses, mangroves and salt marshes. This is despite the wide occurrence and societal importance of all four ecosystems. Here, we show that although there has been a considerable increase in seagrass research and conservation effort, the imbalance has in fact increased over time. This involves both research funding, effort, and the proportion of general ecology and ecosystem research that this effort constitutes. First, data on private research and conservation funding 2006–2016 (retrieved from the Foundation Center database: foundationcenter.org) show that the number of grants and the total funding to grants including the word ‘coral’ exceeded those to ‘seagrass’, ‘mangrove’ and ‘marsh’ grants by 1–2 orders of magnitude (Fig. 2a). Moreover, the ‘coral’ grants were allocated to > 1 order of magnitude more recipients (researchers, practitioners, etc.). Second, data on research effort over the past 25 years (estimated as yearly number of publications in ISI Web of Science during 1992–2016) show that publications including the word ‘coral*’ in title, abstract or keywords not only dominate (Fig. 2b), but that ‘coral’ and ‘mangrove’ research effort has grown exponentially. At the same time, ‘seagrass’ and ‘salt marsh’ effort has only grown linearly and considerably slower. Finally controlling for the fact that ecology and ecosystem science in general has grown considerably (by calculating what proportion of yearly publications retrieved using the search string ‘ecosystem* OR ecolog* OR species*’ that also included the words ‘coral*’, ‘mangrove*’, ‘seagrass*’ or ‘salt marsh*’), a striking pattern emerges. The proportion of publications increased more or less linearly for all four ecosystems until the mid 2000s (indicating an increasing interest for and/or effort in coastal ecosystem research), after which the proportion of ‘coral’ and ‘mangrove’ research effort kept rising, but the proportion of ‘seagrass’ and ‘salt marsh’ publications instead levelled off and decreased. Together, these results suggest that seagrass (as well as salt marsh) research and conservation is underfunded, conducted by fewer people, and grows at an increasingly slower rate, than that on coral reefs (and to a lesser extent mangrove) (Fig. 2).