Tuesday cheer: seagrass restoration

July 6, 2021 10:37 AM

From Laura Paddison in Reasons to be Cheerful: When Karen McGlathery used to swim in the coastal bays off Virginia’s Eastern Shore, the water would quickly turn cloudy and brown as sediment swirled around her. Now, 25 years later, for as far as she can swim the water remains clear. ... McGlathery, an environmental sciences professor at the University of Virginia, is part of a team running the largest seagrass restoration project in the world in these coastal bays — and one of the most successful. The two-decade-long project is a “blueprint for restoring and maintaining healthy ecosystems,” according to a 2020 research paper, and proof that marine habitats can be brought back to life in a way that’s self-sustaining.
posted by Bella Donna (14 comments total)

Very nice read, and fantastic effort by the University of Virginia team who led this effort. It’s been incredibly dispiriting to read the Climate news for the last many, many years. I’ve been working recently to take cues from Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit and try and see possibility amidst the madness. This was one of those examples of possibility. Thank you for sharing.
posted by glaucon at 11:00 AM on July 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

Smithsonian magazine ran some great photography in a December 2020 article including this work.
posted by drdanger at 11:19 AM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

In the 1930s, a wasting disease swept along the U.S. east coast, wiping out huge swaths of eelgrass.

It didn't help that eelgrass beds were already being stripped bare to make cheap housing insulation. Fortunately the blight put an end to that.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:29 AM on July 6, 2021 [4 favorites]

This is really great news.

It's staggering to think of the effort this has taken so far - "Over the last 20 years, supported by an army of volunteers, the project team has sown nearly 75 million seeds." And simultaneously so encouraging to see how that human effort was carried forward by nature, with the eelgrass spreading and growing naturally once the seeding effort was underway.

Like glaucon, I've been seeking out reports of change for the good, glimmers of hope.

I am most grateful for this report, Bella Donna - thank you so much for sharing it with us.
posted by kristi at 12:29 PM on July 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

These threads don’t get enough love.

Good news is good news. Lots of evidence points to ecosystems bouncing back remarkably quickly with completely known processes, policy and technology.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:39 PM on July 6, 2021 [7 favorites]

Aww, thanks folks. I have been looking for a bit of good news to share after sharing plenty of discouraging news. Thanks for the link, drdanger, and for the other comments. It's a nice pick-me-up as I head to bed in Europe.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:07 PM on July 6, 2021 [4 favorites]

On a small scale, I'm slowly converting my lawn to native prairie garden, both seeded with prairie mixes as well as designed. It's not saving the local ecosystem, but it's so much healthier to watch all the insect and bird life living in the resulting garden than it is stewing on my couch reading about the end of the world.
posted by MillMan at 2:42 PM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

^MilMan, not sure about your climate and such, but there are strains of flowering clover that tend to hug the ground (vs. grow overly tall) plus an aggressive ground cover/invasive weed we call creeping Charlie, and combined they compose a good portion of the yard. Seem to do well in exposed sun and shaded area, but I have to warn you: the creeping Charlie is aggressive, it will grow into your garden if you are not careful.

It mows just fine, low profile plant, there's a pretty deep violet bloom that comes out, and both the clover and creeping Charlie seem to attract bees well enough. That's all I have to say about that.
posted by elkevelvet at 3:08 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Great post.
If harvested in a sustainable way, eel grass is a great alternative to harmful methods of insulation. And it can be done. I may return with links but right nw I'm dealing with post vaccine effects.
posted by mumimor at 3:32 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

For more good habitat restoration news, this article on beavers restoring wetlands in CA is also great!
posted by cali at 3:55 PM on July 6, 2021 [5 favorites]

Hopefully we’ll learn our lesson here and it won’t take so long to restore the damage to west coast kelp forests following the sea star wasting disease
posted by interogative mood at 4:48 PM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

Great project!

Where did they find 75 million seagrass seeds?
posted by monotreme at 10:31 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

What a nice and successful story Bella Donna "this beautiful underwater prairie", evocative.

monotreme "Where did they find 75 million seagrass seeds?" I have friends who spend much of their time collecting all kinds of native seed for restoration (and normal plant propagation) work. Even more difficult collecting from marine places I imagine.

ahh, here it is: Large-Scale Zostera marina (eelgrass) Restoration in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA. Part I:A Comparison of Techniques and Associated Costs [Wiley.com fulltext pdf] "Our costs for planting 1 ha of bottom with Z. marina seeds ranged from $6,674 to $165,699 depending on seeding density and dispersal method used. The average cost per Z. marina seed was $0.17", like all restoration (hate that term; it's repair) it doesn't come cheap.
posted by unearthed at 1:07 AM on July 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

It sounds like this has been really successful. It's interesting that they were able to have such success just through seeding. On a lot of fresh water and uplands projects, there are problems of unsuitable habitat (ie, needing physical restoration) and invasive species colonization that have to be solved before seeding alone would work.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:36 PM on July 7, 2021 [1 favorite]