Project Gram
The Gram Project wants to collect all the scattered information available on the species and its ecology, and generate new knowledge of the species in the Mediterranean habitat.
What is the gram?
The Gram ( Cymodocea nodosa ) is a marine phanerogam, that is to say, a plant that makes flowers and lives permanently in the sea.
In Catalonia, we can find Cymocodea nodosa quite soma, at a depth of only 1 m, in the most protected bays of the Ebro Delta, or we can also find it deeper along many sandy beaches of the Catalan coast.
In the Bay of Roses we find it forming a single meadow from Roses to L’Escala, approximately between 8 and 13 meters deep, in a meadow of 400 m and 1,300 m wide and occupying about 800 Ha of surface.
It is possibly the largest grassland of the species worldwide, although the species has a reduced distribution in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, from southern Portugal to Senegal.
Although the community of Cymodocea nodosa is not as complex and diverse as the community of the more well-known Posidonia oceanica , it plays a very important role in the ecology of the Bay of Roses due to its great extent.
In recent years, the distribution of the Gram in the Bay of Roses has been completely mapped, but until now we have no data on its role in the ecology of the Bay.
What are the objectives of the project?
The main objectives are:
- Contribute knowledge about the state and evolution of the Cymodocea nodosa meadow in the Gulf of Roses
- Generate a list of species detected in Gram’s meadow
- Work on the collection of data on Cymodocea nodosa in this habitat
- Study the conservation needs of the prairie
At the same time, work is being done on the drafting of an informative publication to make this habitat known to the local population and administrations involved, with the aim that it can serve as a starting point to be able to study the evolution of its status conservation and be able to propose conservation measures if necessary.
In order to achieve this, the grassland of the Gulf of Roses is monitored through periodic dives. These trips generate content as the dives are carried out, such as a list of species detected in the meadow and a gallery of photos taken by our photographers.
Currently, there is the ” Biodiversity in the Gram ” project on the Minka platform , where information is constantly being provided thanks to citizen science, and which is also nourished by other projects such as the one promoted with ANERIS .
