The MAARES project, co-funded by the MCST Space Fund Programme and Malta’s Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Enterprise (MEEE), has started to deliver its first tangible results one year into its implementation.

Through a series of SCUBA dives within Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows in shallow waters within a number of local embayments, a series of aerial drone flights over the same meadows and the utilisation of high-resolution satellite data (e.g. Sentinel 2), researchers collaborating on the project managed to accurately distinguish seagrass meadows from other benthic habitats within the mapped embayments. In turn, this milestone will enable the delivery of high-resolution distribution maps for Posidonia oceanica, thus establishing a reliable baseline from which to monitor future changes in the same distribution and hence supporting marine management efforts.

This high-resolution mapping exercise can be supplemented within the future elaboration of indices which reflect, for example, the density (a proxy for state of health) of the seagrass meadows being monitored given that generated values are validated through ground-truthing (SCUBA diving). P. oceanica-dominated assemblages are considered, within EU legislation, as a priority habitat by virtue of the pivotal role these play within marine ecosystems.

Concurrently, the same meadows are vulnerable to a kaleidoscope of anthropogenic pressures, including anchoring, pollution, sediment changes (e.g. through dredging) and anomalous sea warming. The optimised mapping tools being developed within the framework of the MAARES project will hopefully facilitate the identification of temporal changes in the distribution of P. oceanica meadows and the correlation, in the long term, of the same changes with human activities within the monitored sites.

The University of Malta, represented by Alan Deidun and Adam Gauci from the Oceanography Malta Research Group of the Department of Geosciences within the Faculty of Science, is a partner within MAARES, along with the Coordinator of the project, Ambjent Malta, the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA), and PIXAM Limited.

The same meadows are vulnerable to a kaleidoscope of anthropogenic pressures

MAARES will tackle one major constraint in the current approach adopted to monitor P. oceanica: the laborious and arduous tasks of mapping the extent of seagrass, using in-situ techniques such as underwater surveys.

Past data collection approaches, employing both in-situ and ex-situ surveys, highlighted the need to obtain higher resolution data at larger spatial scales and more frequent temporal scales to capture the different phenological stages, to enable more understanding on the geographical extent and health status of this habitat.

This approach will not only improve the fine-tuning of policy related to marine habitat conservation but will also provide Ambjent Malta and ERA with the knowledge to implement applied habitat conservation initiatives in Marine Protected Areas and Maltese territorial waters.

More information on the MCST Space Fund and the MAARES project can be found here. 

Sound Bites

•        Megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived, is famous for its huge, human-hand-sized teeth. However, there is little fossil evidence of its whole body. International researchers have now used an exceptionally preserved specimen to create a 3D computer model of its full body. Their results suggest that the megalodon could fully consume prey the size of today’s killer whales and then roam the seas without more food for two months.

•        Within minutes of the final heartbeat, a cascade of biochemical events triggered by a lack of blood flow, oxygen and nutrients begins to destroy a body’s cells and organs. A team of scientists has found this massive and permanent cellular failure does not have to happen so quickly. Using a new technology they developed ‒ which delivers a specially designed cell-protective fluid to organs and tissues ‒ the researchers restored blood circulation and other cellular functions in pigs a full hour after their deaths.

For more soundbites, listen to Radio Mocha every Saturday at 7.30pm on Radju Malta and the following Monday at 9pm on Radju Malta 2 https://www.fb.com/RadioMochaMalta/.

DID YOU KNOW?

•        Because diets in poorer countries tend to be higher in fibre, the stool of someone from a low-income country weighs, on average, twice as much as the stool of someone from a high-income country.

•        Anannatannassamitindriya is a Sanskrit word for the feeling that there must be a word for a feeling that you can’t name. Its literal translation is ‘I-will-come-to-know-what-is-unknown’.

•        There is a divination system where a fortune teller interprets the lines formed by the cracks on your smartphone screen. It is called smashomancy.

•        Sponges sneeze.

For more trivia, see: www.um.edu.mt/think.