A century of warfare shoots holes in anti-Caulerpa campaign

Abstract

Effort to have all varieties of the marine alga Caulerpa taxifolia listed as noxious weeds hinges on the argument that the alga's proliferation in the Mediterranean Sea is a cause and not a consequence of environmental degradation. Until now, the occurrence of two populations in a pristine part of the northern Mediterranean near the island of Porquerolles has upheld this claim. Here we show that the alga's development at Porquerolles is indeed a consequence of environmental degradation caused by military weapons' impacts on seagrass beds during the last century. The available data show that substratum enrichment plays a key role in fostering development of Caulerpa, irrespective of whether this results directly from pollution or from the impacts of pollution and other anthropogenic factors on benthic vegetation cover