NEWS

NEWS

Keeping you up to date with Project Seagrass news and views with a mixture of field notes and commentary on seagrass and marine conservation topics.

What does the future hold for seagrass?

The savannahs of the seas – our humble seagrass meadows are in peril In its Green Seas episode, Blue Planet II introduced us to seagrass meadows. Scarcely touched upon in past media when compared to coral reefs, mangroves and even kelp forests, we learnt about the vast potential of these

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Blue Planet, Green Seas. What’s the take home message?

This weekend we are in for a treat as the BBC Blue Planet team broadcast episode 5 “Green Seas” for the first time (Sunday 26th November, BBC One, 8pm – don’t miss it!). The episode will reveal amazing footage of charismatic animals such as the Weedy Sea Dragon, the Green Sea Turtle

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Seagrass meadows key fishing ground globally

Fishing in seagrass occurs around the globe; if there is seagrass (and people) there is fishing. Still, the nature and extent of fisheries in seagrass is poorly understood. It is a prerequisite for natural resource management to understand resource exploitation, therefore we decided to investigate this further. Seagrasses are plants that

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Festivals of Seagrass: Cause for Ocean Optimism!

Over the next few days the Save Posidonia Project, Formentera celebrates the Save Posidonia Festival. The idea behind the project is to host a festival where culture, sport and environmental activities will be carried out that celebrate the fantastic contribution that the seagrass Posidonia oceanica makes to Mediterranean well-being. The festival is aimed both

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Year FOUR of Project Seagrass!

So that’s 4 years, 1460 days, 35,040 hours, 2,120,400 minutes or 12,614,400 seconds of seagrass! 2016/2017 has been our biggest 12 months to date, with our hosting of the 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop at Nant Gwrtheyrn the obvious highlight. But that’s not all we’ve been up to this year. Since our ‘3 years

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What a way to celebrate World Environment Day!

WOW! I only went and ran THREE marathons in SIX weeks!   TODAY, on non-other than World Environment Day (WED), I am SO happy to have completed the challenge I set down for myself, and to have raised over £1,700 for Project Seagrass to continue their great work. What an amazing way

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Talking about Plastic Pollution during EU Green Week

Kayaking on the Isle of Skye’s lochs you feel as though you’re a million miles from civilisation; back to basics with wildlife flitting about you and crystal clear waters to peer into. There’s no rumble in your ear of background traffic noise or aeroplanes going overhead. Just you, your paddling

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Searching for seagrass on Skye

Scotland threw it all at us, and I think for the most, we enjoyed every part! After 13 hours on the road, we turned off to Heaste, the village we were staying in on the Isle of Skye. We headed off down a single-track lane, full of blind corners and summits,

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A pair of dark bellied Brent Geese fly through the sky. The sky is grey
biodiversity

The Brent Goose: Creatures that call seagrass home

In a new blog series, our Conservation Trainee Abi David explores some of the amazing creatures that call seagrass meadows their home. The Brent Goose Branta bernicla is of a similar size to a Mallard duck, making it one of the smallest goose species in the world. They are a

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A map of the world showing where seagrass has been spotted using SeagrassSpotter
coastal systems

Harnessing open data to understand coastal social-ecological systems

Our oceans and coasts are home to ecosystems that provide immense benefits to people, from food and livelihoods to carbon storage and coastal protection. In particular, seagrass meadows are archetypal social-ecological systems (SES), linking human well-being to ecosystem health. But to manage these systems effectively, we need access to both ecological

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Zostera marina seagrass meadow. Credit Ben Jones
Chesapeake Bay

Seagrass swap could reshape Chesapeake Bay food web

Beneath the surface of the Chesapeake Bay, a subtle but dramatic shift is taking place as eelgrass gives way to its warmer-water relative, widgeon grass. A new study from researchers at William & Mary’s Batten School & VIMS shows that this seagrass swap could have ecological impacts across the Bay’s

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SeagrassSpotter Nanozostera japonica
genetics

Researchers uncover hidden seagrass species in northwest Pacific

Seagrasses, foundational species in coastal ecosystems worldwide, are surprisingly few in documented diversity—with only about 70 species identified globally, despite their widespread distribution and ecological importance. Complicating matters, their high phenotypic plasticity within species makes precise classification challenging. Against this backdrop, a research team led by Prof. Zhou Yi from

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Volunteers crouch in the seagrass meadow at Porthdinllaen collecting seagrass seeds
North Wales

Fieldwork notes from our summer seagrass seed collections

The Project Seagrass team have had another busy summer of seagrass seed collections!  This year collections took place in Yarmouth, Ryde, and Bembridge on the Isle of Wight in the Solent, and in Porthdinllaen in North Wales. Find out more about how this summer’s collections went:  Solent Seed Collection |

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