The importance of seagrass beds as a habitat for fishery species

Seagrass beds are thought to have a fundamental role in maintaining populations of commercially exploited fish and invertebrate species by providing one or more of the following: (1) a permanent habitat, allowing completion of the full life cycle, (2) a temporary nursery area for the successful development of the juvenile stages, (3) a feeding area for various life-history stages and (4) a refuge from predation. In addition to these primary roles, seagrass beds are thought to maintain fisheries indirectly by providing organic matter which is incorporated into coastal nutrient cycles and which supports secondary production, including fisheries species. Unfortunately, these roles have been distilled from a disparate literature that often reports results using different sampling methods, seagrass species, geographical locations and temporal or spatial scales. The aims of this review are to summarise the literature assessing the importance ofseagrass habitats for fishery species, to highlight possible confounding factors that may help to explain some of the contradictory statements in the literature and to identify areas of seagrass ecology that require further investigation.