Seagrasses in the Anthropocene

The 2024 World Seagrass Conference (WSC2024) & 15th International Seagrass Biology Workshop (ISBW15) will take place in Napoli, Italy, from June 17th to June 21st, 2024.

The theme of WSC2024 and ISBW15, Seagrasses in the Anthropocene, come from the knowledge that seagrass ecosystems are facing an accelerating human pressure at local and global scales. Environmental changes are transforming seagrass ecosystems into new configurations unlike anything observed before. Returning to past configurations is no longer an option.

The global challenge is to establish a new baseline, protect, restore, and rehabilitate the existing resource.

The key questions to address are:
To which extent species are resilient to environmental changes?
Which are the mechanisms behind that?
What can we do to ensure seagrass sustainability? 
Which methodologies can we apply and/or further develop for keeping meadows functional?
How can we effectively combine socio-economic, cultural and management approaches with the basic science?

ISBW15 and WSC24 will strive to answer these questions with three themes:

– Theme 1 : Seagrass responses to environmental change

– Theme 2 : Seagrass community diversity and species interactions

– Theme 3 : Seagrass conservation, management and citizen science.