Eduardo Gabriel Torres Conde, Beatriz Martínez Daranas,
2020
Revistas arbitradas
Oceanographic and spatio temporal analysis of pelagic Sargassum drifts in Playas del Este, La Habana, Cuba
40
1991-6086
CIENCIAS DE LA VIDA
BOTANICA
BIOLOGIA MARINA
Since 2011, the Caribbean has experienced a massive influx of drifting pelagic Sargassum, which has caused damage not only in the tourism sector but also in the structure of coastal ecosystems. To know the status of drifting pelagic Sargassum on the east littoral of Havana, a study was performed from May2 018 through May 2019 in five beaches of East Havana. Transects (50 m) were located parallel to the shoreline and, in points previously estimated, a quadrant of 25 x 25 cm was flipped perpendicularly to the transect until covering the width of the strip of drift pelagic Sargassum in the intertidal zone. Then, pelagic Sargassum biomass was weighted at every point, and the dry weight biomass was estimated. The total dry biomass (1372 kg) was low with respect to other areas of Cuba and the Caribbean. In addition, the highest values coincided with the winter season in Cuba. This season was related to the presence of cold fronts, a negative average magnitude of the ArticOscillation index (-0.05), and a positive average magnitude of the North Atlantic Oscillation index (0.15). The beaches with a relative lineal shape (1188 kg) reported higher drifting biomass than the beaches with a horseshoe shape (174 kg). The highest accumulations were recorded with wind velocity above 35 km/h-1, fundamentally from the north component, wave height above 1.5m, and with temperatures below 30oC.
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