Species richness effects on the vegetative expansion of transplanted seagrass in Indonesia

Seagrass restoration is necessary to provide the critical ecosystem functions that are being lost with seagrass decline. Seagrass restoration of mixed species seagrass beds, especially in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, is poorly understood. Here, we transplanted random combinations of 1, 2, 4 and 5 seagrass species common in Indonesia to determine the effect of multispecies plantings on expansion of rhizomes. We measured seagrass vegetative expansion outside of the transplantation plots after 1 year post-transplantation for 5 months. The expansion rate increased with species richness. This result indicates that a multispecies approach to seagrass restoration in Indonesia would benefit restoration efforts. Further, for multispecies restoration we suggest using five-species combinations because they expanded the fastest of all species richness levels by the end of the experiment (on average 15.4 cm2 day−1).