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.
Edinburgh Science Festival Bubbles and enthusiasm took over for Project Seagrass as we set up our stall at Edinburgh International Science Festival last week. The festival has taken over the city for two weeks every year since 1989, and was the world’s first public celebration of science, definitely something that we’re
Over ONE MILLION participants have had a #ReasonToRun since the first London Marathon in 1981. The training and sacrifices involved with running a marathon are enormous, not least the amount of time it takes just to put the miles in day in day out, and the weekends that are geared all around
I was recently ‘nudged’ to do something by a fellow seagrass enthusiast who shall remain nameless for the time being! I must admit that I have been distracted by life and other ‘things’ for several months and desperately needed that ‘nudge’ to get going again. So, with March being Seagrass Awareness
It’s only… SEAGRASS AWARENESS MONTH! ‘Seagrass Awareness Month’ has been designated as March ever since I started learning about these underappreciated ecosystems 6 years ago. However, the state-wide habitat engagement initiative appears to have been limited so far to just Florida in the USA. Why haven’t we made more of
Hello again folks, So, we’re less than 8 weeks out from the London Marathon (23rd April) and the training is going well. My longest distance so far is 17 miles and we’ve got an 18-mile run in the diary for this weekend. The mornings are beginning to get lighter earlier (sunrise was
For nearly 10 years I have been teaching, writing, tweeting, speaking, blogging, presenting and workshopping pretty much around the clock, in my role as a science teacher, a diving instructor, and now presently as a Science Communicator here at Project Seagrass. I’ve learnt to use all the communication tools I
Hello! My name is Sarah Jane Pope and this year I am running the London, Edinburgh and Stockholm marathons this year to raise money for Project Seagrass. I’ll get straight to the point… You can sponsor me here! http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SJPopester I decided to take up this challenge because I wanted to
There’s an odd bunch of people with a strange sounding passion – a passion for seagrass. You’d think that anything with grass in its name might be boring, especially when compared to ecosystems like tropical rainforests, filled with birds of paradise or the vast savannas of Africa filled with elephants
In a previously life I was a Secondary School Science Teacher, and I was privileged to work at a fantastic school (alongside some of the most innovative and enthusiastic teachers the UK has to offer). I know these teachers took their pedagogy seriously, and I was reminded of this dedication when I
With every year that passes we’re given a unique opportunity to look back and reflect on what we’ve achieved. I’ll be honest, every year since our inception in 2013 we’ve been immensely shocked at just how much we’ve achieved given that we’re on a shoestring budget. 2016 was certainly no
Seagrasses evolved from freshwater plants and use sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) for photosynthesis and are able to thrive in depths down to 50 meters. In contrast to algae, they possess roots and rhizomes that grow in sandy to muddy sediments. The grass-like, leaf-shoots produce flowers and complete their life
For approximately 3,000 years, generations of green sea turtles have returned to the same seagrass meadows to eat. This was discovered by Willemien de Kock, a historical ecologist at the University of Groningen, by combining modern data with archaeological findings. Sea turtles migrate between specific breeding places and eating places
Discussions of valuable but threatened ocean ecosystems often focus on coral reefs or coastal mangrove forests. Seagrass meadows get a lot less attention, even though they provide wide-ranging services to society and store lots of climate-warming carbon. But the findings of a new University of Michigan-led study show that seagrass
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
