BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhuanet) -- About 30 percent of seagrass meadows in the world's oceans have been lost over the past three decades because of population growth, climate change and ecological degradation, according to a report Tuesday.

    Seagrasses are flowering plants found in shallow waters. They absorb large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

    The report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 29 percent of the world's known seagrass had disappeared since 1879 and the losses were accelerating.

    Marine biologist Professor Gary Kendrick of the University of Western Australia in Perth, and his colleagues said: "every year we're losing about 110 square kilometres of seagrasses globally."

    Kendrick and colleagues analyzed 215 studies of seagrass beds in shallow coastal waters from around the world.

    They found seagrass was being lost from east and west North America, the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Europe, parts of East Asia, Southeast Asia, as well as tropical and temperate Australasia.

    (Agencies)