This summer, members of the Project Seagrass team were on the Isle of Wight as part of our annual seagrass seed collection efforts:
Seed Collections
This year, our seagrass seed collections on the Isle of Wight took place in Yarmouth and Ryde. Seeds were collected through a combination of SCUBA diving, snorkelling, and wading with 51 volunteers supporting the collection efforts. We were pleased to welcome our partners Blue Parameters and SSEN to support the collections.
164kg of seed material was collected across this year’s intertidal and subtidal seed collections. This material has now been transported to Project Seagrass‘ HQ in Bridgend, South Wales where it is being processed ahead of storage over winter in our Seagrass Nursery. The seeds will be re-planted at Isle of Wight restoration sites during 2027.
Meadow Health Surveys
An important consideration for the team during seed collection efforts is understanding the health of our donor meadows.
As part of our seed collections, the team conducted meadow health and reproductive surveys in each of our donor meadows. This included gathering data on the length of seagrass seeds, identifying the number of reproductive shoots, in addition to the stage of reproduction of seeds.
The team also collected leaf samples for later nutrient analysis.
Recreational Boat Surveys
As part of the Solent Seascape Project, Project Seagrass are working to explore ways to protect seagrass at one of restoration sites in Priory Bay. Priory Bay supports important seagrass meadows and is also a popular area for boating and recreation.
As part of this summer’s fieldwork, the team carried out recreational boat surveys at Priory Bay to better understand how people make use of the bay to inform plans for how seagrass and boating can coexist. Find out more about this work here.
