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World’s largest seagrass restoration project leads to rapid recovery of coastal ecosystem

Source: Jay Fleming/ScienceNews

A 20-year project planting 70 million seagrass seeds off Virginia’s Eastern Shore has led to the ecosystem’s rapid recovery and created a blueprint for capitalising on this habitat’s capacity to store carbon.

Restoration of seagrass habitat leads to rapid recovery of coastal ecosystem

It began as an experiment, and over the course of 20 years it has grown into the biggest success story of its kind. A seagrass restoration project off the coast of Southeast Virginia is demonstrating the resilience of marine ecosystems when they are given the chance to recover.

Restored seagrass beds (dark areas) along Virginia’s Atlantic coast, with sunlight reflecting from a small island. Source: Jonathan Lefcheck/TheConversation

Seagrass success in Virginia: from barren sediment to abundant meadows

Twenty years ago, a group of marine scientists and volunteers began to spread more than 70 million eelgrass (Zostera marina) seeds across a 200-hectare (495-acre) plot of barren sentiment off the southern end of Virginia’s eastern shore. 

Led by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and with help from The Nature Conservancy, the project has since grown to over 3,600 hectares (8,896 acres) of abundant seagrass meadows, making it the largest restoration of its kind in the world. To put this into perspective, another landmark seagrass meadow project off the coast of Wales used 750,000 seeds to create a five-acre meadow, and the largest such project in Australia aims to restore 10 hectares of seagrass.

GoodNewsNetwork report that in the 20 years it has taken to create the mega 3,600-hectare ecosystem in Virginia, researchers have have had the opportunity to witness the process from infancy to adulthood. They’ve been documenting every detail, every step of the way, in order to lay the foundations of knowledge for widespread seagrass restoration across the world. This is important because seagrass isn’t just a good home for marine biodiversity; it can also help the planet, because seagrass meadows are one of the most efficient storers of carbon.

Source: GoodNewsNetwork 

Mature seagrass beds have been found to sequester 1.3 times more carbon and 2.2 times more nitrogen in their roots and the soil around them than young seagrass beds. 3,000 metric tons of carbon, the equivalent of the emissions of 653 cars driven for a year, and 600 metric tons of nitrogen were being sequestered every year by the project meadows at the 20-year mark.
Resiliency is their great strength in a changing climate. Mature seagrass beds have been found to sequester 1.3 times more carbon and 2.2 times more nitrogen in their roots and the soil around them than young seagrass beds. 3,000 metric tons of carbon, the equivalent of the emissions of 653 cars driven for a year, and 600 metric tons of nitrogen were being sequestered every year by the project meadows at the 20-year mark. Source: Jay Fleming/ScienceNews

A model for worldwide coastal restoration

Repairing damaged ecosystems is such an urgent mission worldwide that the United Nations has designated 2021-2030 as the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. We see the success we have achieved with eelgrass restoration as a prime model for similar efforts in coastal areas around the world.

The project, headed by Robert J. Orth Professor of Marine Science, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Jonathan LefcheckResearch Scientist, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Smithsonian Institution, and Karen McGlathery, Professor of Environmental Sciences and Director, Environmental Resilience Institute, University of Virginia, focused not only on reviving this essential habitat, but also on charting how restoring seagrasses affected the ecosystem and on the co-restoration of bay scallops. It provides a road map for involving scholars, nonprofits organisations, citizens and government agencies in an ecological mission where they can see the results of their work.

Recent assessments show that the restored zone only covers about 30% of the total habitable bottom in their project area. With continued support, eelgrass – and the many benefits it provides – may continue to thrive and expand well into the 21st century. 

Read the report ‘Restoration of seagrass habitat leads to rapid recovery of coastal ecosystem services.

Source: TheConversation

Replanting shores to combat a crisis. Seagrass captures harmful CO2 up to 35x faster than tropical rainforests, so these guys are doing important work! Grass forests also serve as nurseries for TONS of marine species, literally breathing life into the ocean. Thanks to this underwater restoration effort, Virginia's Chesapeake Bay is thriving and playing a key role towards slowing down climate change! Source: Facebook/Waste-Ed
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