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.
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
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 Lefcheck, Research 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
BRIGHTVIBES: OCEAN ARTICLES
If you are a fan of all things oceanic, this is the link for you. A selection of BrightVibes articles about cleanup projects, wildlife and nature news stories, and people-powered initiatives helping to save our oceans. If you love the sea, you’ll love these stories, and you can even get involved in some of them!