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Seagrass meadows at the extreme of environmental tolerance Tomasello, Di Maida, Calvo, Pirrotta, Borra & Procaccini

Fig. 1. Study area with sampling sites (1 = Atolls, 2 = Re´ cif, 3 = Plateau, 4 = Nubia, 5 = Marsala, 6 = Favignana) and Atolls selected for sampling
highlighted on aerial photography.

pling within the same clonal patch (Procaccini & Malta- (Fig. 1). From each shoot, rhizomes and bundles were
gliati 2004). The position of each shoot collected was taken for reconstructive and genetic analysis, respectively.
recorded by GPS with a marginal error of about 1 m. In
the northern basin of the lagoon, six to eight individual DNA extraction and microsatellite analysis
shoots were sampled from each of six atolls, selected by For each bundle, a leaf segment about 2 cm long was
aerial geo-referenced orthophotos according to their cen- cleaned of epiphytes with a razor blade and stored in sil-
tral position in the lagoon and to their shape. The aver- ica gel for further DNA extraction. Genomic DNA was
age width of sampled atolls ranged from 17 to 43 m

290 Marine Ecology 30 (2009) 288–300 ª 2009 Blackwell Verlag GmbH