Newly discovered seagrass beds in the coastal seas of Guangdong Province
广东沿海新发现的海草床

Distribution, species composition, biomass, habitat of seagrass beds and main threats that seagrass bed habitats suffer are introduced and discussed in this paper based on field surveys in the offshore areas of Guangdong Province. The newly-discovered seagrass beds mainly distribute in the Zhelin Bay, Baisha Lake, Kaozhouyang Lagoon, Daya Bay, Tangjia Bay of Zhuhai, Shangchuan Island, Xiachuan Island, Qishui Bay of Leizhou and so on. There are three species of seagrass, namely Halophila ovalis, Halophila beccarii and Zostera japonica. Percentage coverage, shoot density and biomass of sea-grass are 6.67%-53.33%, 3 428.57-10 542.00shoots.m-2 and 12.86-118.24g.m-2, respectively; while mean density, biomass, diversity and evenness index of benthic organisms on seagrass beds are 16.67-734.67ind.m-2, 15.39-426.88g.m-2, 0.46-1.98 and 0.28-0.89, respectively. However, the seagrass habitats are subjected to some threats resulted from artificial and natural causes, such as culture of oysters and snails, wastewater discharge, fishing by means of electric power, shellfish collection, typhoons and floods.