l.A POSIDONIA OCEANICA
PROPOSAL OF AGREEMENT
UPON CARTOGRAPHlCAL PARAMETERS
RELEVANT TO mOSE MEDITERRANEAN
AREAS CHARACTERISED BY COASTAL
BENTONIC BIOCENOSIS
F. CINELLI (l)t E. FRESI (2, C. LORENZI (2)f G. OREt (3), S. CALVO (4)r A. CO U (-); G. MATRICARDI (6), P. COLANTONI (7), A. PEIRANO (8), N. BIANCHI (8), L. MAZZELLA (9), D. lA CETIl (lO), P. GIANNETTl (0),
G. MAMMUCARI (lO), A. MUCEDOLA (lO).
(O Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Amhiente e del Territorio - Università di Pisa (2) Dipartimento di Biologia - niversìtà di Tor Vergata
(3 Dipartimento di Biologia -Università di Trieste
(4') Dipartimento di Scienze Botaniche - Univer ila di Palermo
(5) Dipartimento di Botanica ed Ecologia Vegetale ~ Università dì Sassari (6) Istituto di Anatomi.a Comparata -Università di Genova
(7)
r
.tituto di Geodinamica e dì Sedimentologia - Università di Urbìno (8) E~'F~ Centro Ricerche Ambiente Marino S. Teresa -La Spezia(9) Laboratorio di ecologia del Benthos della Stazione Zoologica A. Doh01 - Ischia (10) Marina Militare Italiana
Generallty
Il has long been recognized within the field of science that a commonmethodo-logy for mapping Posidol1ia Oceanica
meadows 15 required. This protocol ainls at fLx.ing cartographi<: parameters: methods of investigation and precise navigation y
-stems that can be employed as references for the future activities along the coastal areas
and
the coa Ùine.ConsideratioR
The study of benthonic org,arusms is fun-damentaJ for tbe evaluation of the environ-ment in whìch they Uve. The onIy useful de -vìce lO evaluatc the growth or the regression of SOUle populations is that of analysing objectively the tate of health of biocenosis using well defined cartographic methods.
lndeed, the descriptions should be ba-sed upon the use of &ymbols (for instance. symbols concerning va rious biocenosis or
Dicembre ]995
different types of sea bottoms).
Maps of a suitable scale and a cammon geodetic syslern of reference should be em-ployed in order to accomplish a correct <-"3r-tography.
Finally, [he crui .. es to collect data should be carried allt using equipment suitable to the environment.
Convention
[n order to standardize the activities. wc have fixed the foUowing guideLines: PROJECDON maps should be develo -ped according to Mcrcatorc's projectÌon along the medium parallel of each.
SCALE mapping cales. hould be nOffi1al-Iy chosen amoog 1;10)000 to 1:25,000. Smaller values are not signìflcam from a qualitative poiot of view because they can not provide a scientific evaluation of the phenomena. lbe defmition of thematic
*. Ev31uatiotl. from . ateUioo iln' ges analy. J ,un
P i. influenced by tbe cho -en Tale. Two
mapping cale chtsses
will
be usdaccor-ding to batimetrie data SOUfce . For instan -ce! l'or ounded data. provided by the
Ita-Han lavy Hydrogmphic lnstitute the
re-commended scale i from 1:10.000 to 1:25,000; for data ohtaioed during pecific oceanographic urvey hould be u~ed a .cale from 1:500 up {O 1:1 000.
GEODETIC REFERENCE. \VG 84 seems (O
be a suitable geodetic reference. It cart be
used a a precise standard reference sy tem
for mapping pc 'itions 3cquired by using
G p Y teOls. Position data collected du
-ring previou surveys and u" ing different
references ED 50 and ROMA 40) should be converted to \VG even at the cost of ... ome conversioo errors.
COLOR . Caloes mu ~t be used in arder to
oblain a better representation of different sedinlenl type (related lO gmnulomelry) and communities in the infra-Httoral parto
YMBOLS. ymbols are required by the
.. Nonnaltation des symbole ~ pour la
repré-~entarion et la cartographie des biocéno benthique .. Httol"Jles de Méditerranée-
(Mei-ne ·z, et al.! 1983),
MI:.'1lfOD". For Posidonia meadow map-ping urveys mUSI be divided into two dif -ferene categories: quantitative and
qualitati-ve o~.ratìons. Quantitative urvey are uti~
lized for the mapping of meadow
coo-. uppleme1Uo al/a R f
LA P IDONIA OCE
taken into c n . detati n i.n broad area .
tours, referred to the tnfrà-Uttoral m
rpho-logy. In this phase, partkular data collec
-tion in~ide the flleadows ìs not nece sary
and might be accomplisht:."(i. becau. e of the
low level of infonnarlon, by non-profe io -na) dentifi diverso
In the case of coUection of ome charac -teristic data (den. ìtv, 'ize and nunm r of
Icaves; presence/absence of tlowers and
fruito;: maçro copie morphologic{l ea-bed characteri tic., t the information provided
will be considered only if it IS gathered by divers with adeguate training and i carried out by universitie , marine search centers
or scientific diving schools recognised by
the Oceanography Comnlunitles. The
qua-lìt~ttive urvey i intended lO improve
knowledge of the meadows areas identi~
fied during a quantitative campaign.
ea-I d characteristic. must be reported in
ac-cordance with lhe pre iousl~' de 'cribed standlrd~ the partecipatìon of fully
quali-fied personnel (sci ntific divers is manda-tory. carch and . navigation sy.5tems methods are reported in the foHowing
la-ble. Bathymetric dala acquisition mu t be
perfomled in ae ordance with directive of
th ltaHan favy Hydrographi lnstitute ru-rectives.
DAT MANAGEMENT. The Navv
Oceano-graphic Centre CEMOC
will create
digitaior . tandard (on paper) maps ha ed on
da-ta ollected by Re eafch In tiNte t Univer
-~itje. ,ltalian Tavy diving tcams and
