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Spread of the native grass Elymus athericus in salt marshes of Mont-Saint-Michel bay as an unusual case of coastal eutrophication

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Abstract

Contrary to many estuaries where the increase in inputs of nitrogenous nutrients results in a macro-algal or phytoplanktonic bloom, no proliferation of this kind has ever been observed in the waters of Mont-Saint-Michel bay (north-western France) owing to a very high turbidity which greatly limits light penetration. On the other hand, it is well known that the factor that usually limits the growth of vascular plants in salt marshes is not the light resource but nitrogen availability; these plant species are therefore able to benefit fully from the enrichment of water by nitrogenous compounds. This seems to be the case of the sea couch grass Elymus athericus that has spread very rapidly on the salt marshes of this site since the mid-1980s. Firstly, the present study (i) accurately documents, from a compilation of data from administrative archives, the changes in agricultural land use in the major watersheds during the period 1970–2010, together with related changes in the nitrate contents of the rivers flowing into the bay; (ii) quantifies the spatial spread of sea couch grass between 1984 and 2013 from the five maps made during this period. In the second part, using in-depth analysis based on the findings of previous studies, it shows that the expansion of this native grass corresponds to a biological invasion phenomenon, for which nitrogen enrichment of the bay seems to be the only plausible explanation.

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Notes

  1. Also known under (but not limited to) the following scientific names: Agropyron acutum (DC.) Roem. & Schult., Agropyron athericum (Link) Samp., Agropyron litorale auct. non Dumort., Agropyron pungens auct. non (Pers.) Roem. & Schult., Agropyron pungens var. athericum (Link) Cout., Agropyron pungens var. acutum (DC.) Dumort., Agropyron pycnanthum (Godr.) Godr. & Gren., Agropyron repens subsp. littorale (Mutel) Bonnier, Braconotia acuta (DC.) Godr., Triticum pycnanthum Godr., Triticum litorale Host, Elymus acutus (DC.) M.-A.Thiébaud, Elymus pycnanthus (Godr.) Melderis, Elytrigia pycnantha (Godr.) A.Löve, Elytrigia atherica (Link) Kerguélen, and currently officially named Elytrigia acuta (DC.) Tzvelev.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all those people who made this project possible and particularly Louis-Marie Guillon, Virginie Bouchard and Françoise Digaire who are the authors of the first two vegetation maps and therefore the instigators of this long-term salt marsh monitoring. We also express our special thanks to Pascal Lombezzi (DRAAF/SRISE Basse-Normandie) for extracting agricultural information from official databases, to Thierry Panaget (ARS-Bretagne) for having kindly guided us through the administrative labyrinth, to Marie-Agnès Pilard (ARS-35), Joël Dufils (ARS-50) and Florent Guibert (AESN) for providing us with nitrate data, and to Mathilde Hamelin (AEUDPM), Maïwenn Berrou (DDTM 50) and municipalities of Ardevon, Huisnes-sur-Mer and Courtils for providing us with data regarding ewes number. Finally, we are very grateful to Jean-Marc Paillisson who provided valuable and helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, and to Aldyth Nys who helped with the English of the manuscript. This long-term research was supported by the European grants n°EV4V-0172-F(EDB) and n°EV5V-CT92-0098, by the French Minister of Environment through the “EGPN, SRETIE/MERE n°90200” grant and the “INVABIO” program, by the CNRS “Site Atelier” grant, by the Conservatoire du Littoral and the Foundation Procter-Gamble grants, and by Seine-Normandie and Loire-Bretagne Water Agency grants through the Inter-SAGE “Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel”.

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  1. Département d’Ecologie et de Gestion de la Biodiversité, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, and EA 7316 Biodiversité et Gestion des Territoires, Université de Rennes 1, Bât 25, Avenue du Général Leclerc, 35042, Rennes cedex, France

    Loïc Valéry & Jean-Claude Lefeuvre

  2. Département des Sciences pour l’Action et le Développement, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, and EA 7316 Biodiversité et Gestion des Territoires, Université de Rennes 1, Bât 25, Avenue du Général Leclerc, 35042, Rennes cedex, France

    Alain Radureau

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  1. Loïc Valéry
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Correspondence to Loïc Valéry.

Electronic supplementary material

Online Resource 1

Geographic atlas: vegetation maps of salt marshes of Mont-Saint-Michel bay (PDF 61.2 mb)

Online Resource 2

Photograph of Elymus athericus in the “hummock zone” of low salt marsh in Mont-Saint-Michel bay (PDF 627 kb)

Online Resource 3

Some information on sheep grazing in salt marshes of Mont-Saint-Michel bay (PDF 536 kb)

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Valéry, L., Radureau, A. & Lefeuvre, JC. Spread of the native grass Elymus athericus in salt marshes of Mont-Saint-Michel bay as an unusual case of coastal eutrophication. J Coast Conserv 21, 421–433 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-016-0450-z

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