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🇵🇱 Poland /Environment & Climate

Seagrass absorbs vast amounts of emissions, but experts bring bad news

From Rzeczpospolita · () Polish

Translated from Polish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Documents & data Ongoing story
  • Global seagrass beds absorb an estimated 24 million to 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, while their net primary productivity could absorb up to 83 million to 137 million tons.
  • Research by Spanish scientists found that Posidonia oceanica collected around Mallorca contained an average of 1,500 plastic particles per kilogram of seagrass.
  • Seagrass is declining in many regions as warming, acidification and poor protection of coastal waters threaten its ability to capture emissions.

Seagrass does far more than hold the seabed together. New research suggests that these underwater meadows absorb enormous quantities of carbon dioxide and can even act as natural plastic filters, yet the conditions that sustain them are deteriorating.

Worldwide, seagrass absorbs between 24 million and 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to the findings described in the article. Its net primary productivity, the organic matter produced by the plants, could absorb an additional 83 million to 137 million tons of CO2 over the same period.

A research project launched in November 2025 by Spain’s National Research Council, CSIC, and the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, IMEDEA, is still under way. Results published so far show that clumps of Posidonia oceanica washed onto beaches in Mallorca contained an average of 1,500 plastic particles per kilogram of seagrass. The species also appears particularly effective at absorbing CO2, with an estimated capacity 50 times greater than that of Halophila.

Climate change threatens seagrass beds, forcing their movement, loss and growing vulnerability to environmental change.

· Researchers from Malaysia and ChinaThe researchers describe how climate change is affecting seagrass ecosystems.

The Mediterranean may have the world’s largest concentration of trapped carbon per hectare, making protection of the sea an important priority in the researchers’ findings. Around Australia, the disappearance of seagrass has the greatest consequences: emissions that the plants might otherwise have captured account for as much as 52 percent. High rates also affect the United States, Mexico, Spain and Italy.

Seagrass is disappearing in highly industrialized regions where local marine waters receive limited protection. Researchers caution that their global estimates could change as they reconcile differences among species, locations and changing processes over time. Climate change threatens seagrass beds through movement, loss and growing vulnerability. Ocean warming can favor invasive species and alter food-web structures, causing further losses of valuable meadows.

Ocean warming is milder for loose structures with lower efficiency and ecological functions.

· Researchers from Malaysia and ChinaThe researchers assess how warming affects the structure and ecological value of seagrass beds.
About this summary

Originally published by Rzeczpospolita in Polish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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