Loading...
2 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
- Ocean literacy to mainstream ecosystem services concept in formal and informal education: the example of coastal ecosystems of Southern PortugalPublication . Barracosa, Helena; de los Santos, Carmen B.; Martins, Márcio; Freitas, Cátia; Santos, RuiThe concept of ecosystem services (ES) emerges as strategic to explain the influences that the ocean, and in particular coastal ecosystems, have on us and how we influence them back. Despite being a term coined several decades ago and being already widespread in the scientific community and among policy-makers, the ES concept still lacks recognition among citizens and educators. There is therefore a need to mainstream this concept in formal education and through Ocean Literacy resources. Although important developments in OL were done in the United States, particularly through the National Marine Educators Association (NMEA), this concept was only recently introduced in Europe. In Portugal, several informal OL education programs were developed in the last years, yet formal education on OL and, in particular, on ES is still very deficient. To address this limitation, the "Environmental Education Network for Ecosystem Services" (REASE), founded in 2017 in the Algarve region by a consortium of educational, environmental and scientific institutions, aims to increase OL through the dissemination of the perspective of how ES provided by coastal vegetation may contribute to the human well-being. The projects and activities implemented by REASE focus mostly on formal-education of school children and include: (1) capacity building for K-12 teachers, (2) educational programs to support and develop ES projects in schools, including a citizen science project to evaluate blue carbon stocks in the Algarve, (3) the publication of a children's book about the ES provided by the local Ria Formosa coastal lagoon, with a community-based participatory design (illustrations made by schoolchildren) and (4) a diverse array of informal education activities to raise awareness on the importance of coastal ecosystems on human well-being. REASE challenges are being successfully addressed by identifying threats to local coastal ecosystems that people worry about, and highlighting solutions to improve and maintain their health.
- Photoacclimation strategies in northeastern Atlantic seagrasses: Integrating responses across plant organizational levelsPublication . Schubert, Nadine; Freitas, Cátia; Silva, André; Costa, Monya; Barrote, Isabel; Horta, Paulo A.; Rodrigues, Ana Cláudia; Santos, Rui; Silva, JoãoSeagrasses live in highly variable light environments and adjust to these variations by expressing acclimatory responses at different plant organizational levels (meadow, shoot, leaf and chloroplast level). Yet, comparative studies, to identify species' strategies, and integration of the relative importance of photoacclimatory adjustments at different levels are still missing. The variation in photoacclimatory responses at the chloroplast and leaf level were studied along individual leaves of Cymodocea nodosa, Zostera marina and Z. noltei, including measurements of variable chlorophyll fluorescence, photosynthesis, photoprotective capacities, non-photochemical quenching and D1-protein repair, and assessments of variation in leaf anatomy and chloroplast distribution. Our results show that the slower-growing C. nodosa expressed rather limited physiological and biochemical adjustments in response to light availability, while both species of faster-growing Zostera showed high variability along the leaves. In contrast, the inverse pattern was found for leaf anatomical adjustments in response to light availability, which were more pronounced in C. nodosa. This integrative plant organizational level approach shows that seagrasses differ in their photoacclimatory strategies and that these are linked to the species' life history strategies, information that will be critical for predicting the responses of seagrasses to disturbances and to accordingly develop adequate management strategies.