A Song of the south: evidence of inter-decadal limit-cycles within a seagrass landscape, driven by a higher octave nutrient consonance. A paleo-reconstruction

Seagrasses provide a high ecosystem service across the globe but appear to be in decline. In response to this concern, and as “time has and will always tell”, a late Anthropocene paleo-reconstruction of a seagrass ecosystem was used to develop a theory of seagrass inter-decadal variance. It was found that temporal ecosystem patterns, with prior knowledge constraints, could be explained from hypotheses taken from a constructed ideal temporal model of seagrass landscape configuration and coverage. The expression of 3-D inter-decadal limit cycle was apparent, as a planktivore trophic cascade with an inverse seagrass/micro-algal couple and nutrient availability, at twice the frequency of the biome. The cycle appeared to be born from the intrinsic asymmetry between seagrass landscape edge length and coverage. A mechanism was proposed, based on the temporal narrative, that incorporated seagrass light and nutrient limitation symmetry across ecosystem states, parameter changes in nutrient forcing and biome feedbacks.