An experimental test of the capacity of food web interactions (fish-epiphytes-seagrasses) to offset the negative consequences of eutrophication on seagrass communities

A mechanism of competition between epiphytes and seagrasses potentially modulated by grazers was studied in a high-nutrient Thalassia testudinum meadow in the Indian River Lagoon (Florida, U.S.A.). The effects of fish grazing on epiphytes, and likely enhancing T. testudinum growth, was tested through an exclusion experiment. Twelve (2×2m) independent experimental plots were selected within a shallow monospecific bed to which three randomized treatments (exclusion fences, open fences and controls) with four replicates each were assigned.