The number of juvenile horseshoe crabs in China has increased significantly. The ecological environment of this protected area continues to improve.
Hangzhou Net Release time: 2023-10-22 13:32
CCTV News Client reported that reporters learned from the Guangxi Hepu Dugong National Nature Reserve that on October 20, staff at the Guangxi Hepu Dugong National Nature Reserve discovered a large number of juvenile individuals of the Chinese horseshoe crab, a national second-level key protected wild animal, during daily patrols.
According to the investigation, 35 juvenile horseshoe crabs were found in the Dugong National Nature Reserve within 100 square meters. In addition, an adult Chinese horseshoe crab weighing about 1.5 kilograms was also found.
The horseshoe crab monitoring survey data of the dugong reserve over the years show that the increase in the number of Chinese horseshoe crabs is due to the reserve’s strong efforts in recent years to clean up coastal wetlands, breed and plant seagrass, and repair the seagrass bed ecosystem, which has improved the ecological environment in the reserve. Continuing to improve, biodiversity becomes increasingly abundant.
Since September 2023, the dugong reserve has joined forces with the China Environmental Protection Foundation, Guangxi Academy of Marine Sciences (Guangxi Mangrove Research Center) and other units to form a seagrass restoration technical team dedicated to seagrass transplantation and restoration work.
The team completed seagrass transplantation and restoration of nearly 10,000 square meters and more than 35,000 grass patches in the seagrass restoration test area of the reserve. Among them, 98% of the plants were transplanted to Salina ovata, and 2% were transplanted to Japanese eelgrass. At present, the transplanted seagrass has taken root and expanded to surrounding areas, with a survival rate of 80%.
Seagrass bed refers to a nearshore ecosystem formed with seagrass as the core, including animals, plants, algae and other organisms. It provides important spawning grounds, nursery grounds, etc. for fish, shellfish, shrimps, crabs and other marine animals. Feeding grounds and habitats have extremely high ecological service functions and are called “ecological engineers” in the ocean.
2023-10-22 05:32:00
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