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.
To give you a bit of an introduction, I am a Cardiff University Genetics (BSc) student going into my final year of my degree and have joined Project Seagrass for a Cardiff University Research Opportunities Programme (CUROP) summer research placement, at their offices in the Sustainable Places Research Institute. I
A guest blogger? But why should I bother reading what he has to say? Well here’s a bit about me…. Originally hailing from Melton Mowbray, a small town in the middle of England known solely for producing pork pies and stilton cheese, my initial foray into marine science began with
Seafood consumption is both a love and a necessity for hundreds of millions of people all across the world. And the supply of seafood is a key part of maintaining food security for the whole planet. But as demand for seafood is increasing, stocks of wild fish and invertebrates (such
Hello Team Seagrass! My name is Laura and I am an ambassador for Project Seagrass. I completed my professional training year with the conservation charity from 2015-2016. Last week I was privileged to attend the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s Panel Discussion on Setting a new post-2020 biodiversity agenda. The 2-hour lecture/interactive
Today on international women’s day 2018 we collectively acknowledge and celebrate women’s achievements throughout history and across nations. It is also known as the United Nations (UN) Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace. Absolutely a day for shared and international celebration. Throughout history and across the world women have
At least 7.3m tons of fish (usually dead or dying) are thought to be discarded each year from marine fisheries around the world. But these estimates come mostly from observations of large-scale industrial fisheries. Limited attention has been paid to small-scale fisheries, which are assumed to have low discard rates –
Britain’s seagrass is a refuge for numerous species of fish, stabilises sandy beaches, and helps to lock away the carbon which humans produce. The meadows that surround the country’s coast have been called the “canaries of the sea”, due to their sensitivity to a changing environment. And like a canary
Hello Team Seagrass! I am Rufus, a volunteer with Project Seagrass and a marine biology graduate from the University of St Andrews. Since graduating in June 2017, I have begun working for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Connect team and the University of St Andrews’ Music Centre. In this split position, I get to enjoy
Happy New Year Team Seagrass! I can’t believe it’s 2018 already, and I’m sure that is a sentiment we all share! 2017 was an unbelievable year for all kinds of reasons, yet despite the crazy world we now seem to live in, for a few of us it has been
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
Mangroves are growing in areas historically dominated by salt marshes and oyster reefs. Invasive pacific oysters are replacing native blue mussels in the Wadden Sea. Macroalgae are exhibiting dominance over hard corals in the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific. Climate change-driven shifts in dominant, habitat-forming species such as these can have significant
Seagrass, a group of aquatic angiosperms, grows in shallow waters in the coastal sea and contributes most of the primary production while participating in many important ecological processes. Heat stress threatens the survival of seagrass, but its damage mechanisms are unclear. Recently, a research team led by Prof. Liu Jianguo
A study of eelgrass meadows planted by researchers from the University of Gothenburg shows that fauna return rapidly once the eelgrass has started to grow. Already after the second summer, the biodiversity in the planted meadow was almost the same as in old established eelgrass meadows. Eelgrass meadows have declined
In Florida alone, thousands of acres of marine seagrass beds have died. Major seagrass die-offs also are occurring around the world. Stressors such as high temperature, hypersalinity and hypoxia or lack of oxygen affect seagrasses’ ability to resist and recover from these stressor-related mortality events or when disturbances lead to
By Emily Yates To donate to our Aviva Community Funds and find out more, click the links below: Making marine conservation more accessible Saving the worlds seagrass Developing the Project Seagrass nursery
