| The coastal zone of the continental shelf contains a high ecological richness. However, this zone is very fragile towards xenobiotics ; the pollution of this environment can be damaging to the structure of the biocenoses and to the productivity of the ecosystems. Metals, contrarily to numerous contaminants, are normal constituents of the environment at a trace level, but are all toxic above a certain threshold. At the end of the 1970s, several researchers proposed the use of organisms to evaluate the quality of the marine environment ; it is in this context that the bio-indicator concept arises. The seagrass Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile, endemic of the Mediterranean Sea, has been the subject of several works proposing to use this species to determine the... |
