The Saya de Malha Banks
Created Sep 10, 2010 05:12 PM — Last modified Oct 17, 2010 11:28 PM
Indian Ocean
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The Saya de Malha Banks are the largest submerged banks in the world containing a unique seagrass biotope in the open ocean. Due to their remoteness, the Saya de Malha Banks are host to some of the least explored shallow tropical marine ecosystems globally, completely detached from land boundaries, and providing an ecologically important oasis of high productivity in the Indian Ocean. This unique ecosystem was identified based on the opinion of scientific experts and on a review of available literature.
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Detailed Description
Both satellite data and field measurements support the hypothesis that the Saya de Malha Banks form an area of high productivity. Enhanced chlorophyll levels (associated with relatively higher biomass of plant material, such as phytoplankton) are visible in satellite imagery (New et al, 2005) and field measurements collected by a research cruise in 2008 also found higher chlorophyll-a levels around the Saya de Malha Banks than in the surrounding area.
Due to their size and shallowness, the Saya de Malha Banks represent one
of the largest shallow tropical marine ecosystems on Earth, and they
may contain the most extensive seagrass area in the world, potentially
covering much of the over 40,000 square kilometer area of the Banks.
According to a 2002 research expedition, seagrass covered roughly 80-90%
of the bottom, with a diverse range of coral species covering around
10-20%, and sandy areas less than 5% (Goreau, 2002). Seagrass species
present in the area include Thalassodendron ciliatum, Halophila
decipiens and Enhalus acoroides, some of which were found growing at a
deeper depth here than elsewhere in the Indian Ocean (Milchakova et al,
2005).
The Banks may serve as a significant sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide and a source of oxygen, since a large part of the seagrass organic production is swept by the currents into deep waters, where some of it is buried in sediments of the ocean bottom (Goreau, 2002).
The shallow water marine ecosystem on Saya de Malha Banks provides feeding habitat for the green turtle (Chelonia mydas), as well as breeding grounds for blue whales of the subspecies Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda, referred to as the pygmy blue whale and resident particularly to the western Indian Ocean (Reilly et al, 2008).1 The Banks may play a role in the maintenance of the straddling fish stocks that supply much of the catch in neighboring waters of Seychelles and Mauritius.
Because the Banks are remote and not well explored, new species continue to be discovered in the area by research expeditions (Richards, 1992; Kim and Amaoka, 2001). The ecological importance of the Banks may extend to providing a potentially important stepping stone in the migration of shallow water species across the Indian Ocean. The Banks may have played a critical role in the colonization of the shores of East Africa and Western Indian Ocean islands by species originating from the Indonesian global marine biodiversity maximum. This is an important consideration in the face of climate change, as the Banks’ unique conditions and remoteness from direct sources of anthropogenic stress may make them a crucial reservoir for the maintenance of biodiversity in the surrounding islands and coastal areas (Goreau, 2002).
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