Seagrass meadows provide a suitable environment for eggstraordinary creatures to lay and secure their weird and wonderful eggs. As its Easter, we thought it would be a nice opportunity to introduce you to eggs that can be found in seagrass meadows around our coast. Cuttlefish eggs or “sea grapes” attached
Back in 2015 we entered the #PeoplesProjects, a competition held by the Big Lottery Fund and ITV to win up to £50,000 of National Lottery money. The Peoples Projects aimed to give organisations the chance to build upon previous projects they had completed with help from the Awards For All funding scheme. At the time we didn’t
Yesterday evening, we hosted our official Project Seagrass launch event and its safe to say it was a blast. We were excited and thrilled to see so many faces, some old and some new – we couldn’t be sure how many of you would make it despite the RSVP! Back
A long-standing tradition of Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) conferences is the friendly and collegial environment and the unwavering support for early career scientists. This #CERF2015 was no exception with a multitude of leading marine scientists inspiring the next generation with #OceanOptimism as together we tackle the Grand Challenges
The International Seagrass Biology Workshop (ISBW) is the only international meeting specifically tailored to seagrass scientists, professionals and students. Abstract submissions are now open as are proposals for workshops. All payment is via PayPal using credit/debit cards. There is one registration fee. It covers access to all parts of the conference program, including the
Indonesia is at the heart of the Coral Triangle, an area characterised by having the World’s highest marine biodiversity. With over 17000 islands, 51,00km2 of coral reef and at least 30000 km2 of seagrass its marine life is extensive and spectacular. But with a growing population, rapidly expanding GDP, and
Seagrass meadows provide a suitable environment for eggstraordinary creatures to lay and secure their weird and wonderful eggs. As its Easter, we thought it would be a nice opportunity to introduce you to eggs that can be found in seagrass meadows around our coast. Cuttlefish eggs or “sea grapes” attached to blades of Zostera marina (Photo: Michiel Vos | www.anbollenessor.wordpress.com) The charismatic cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, is a common visitor to seagrass meadows around the British Isles. Each spring, cuttlefish migrate inshore to shallow bays and estuaries to mate, where the females their eggs. The small black eggs are usually set in bunches, and because of their appearance, are generally called “sea grapes”. These eggs are all of a similar size, about 15 to 25 mm long and can be found beyond the low spring tide mark attached to seagrass blades. Once hatched, these eggstra special creatures are the size of a finger nail and can regularly be seen hiding amongst seagrass leaves during summer months. Netted dog whelk egg sacks on Zostera marina (Photo: Paul Kay) Another special type of egg found in seagrass is that of the netted dog whelk, Nassarius reticulates. These miniature egg capsules are generally vase-shaped and usually attached in rows on seagrasses leaves. The transparent capsules have up to 300 eggs each and after a month they hatch into larvae that live in the plankton for two months. Three sea hares (Aplysia punctata) whithin a Zostera marina meadow, above (Photo: Michiel Vos | www.anbollenessor.wordpress.com) and sea hare egg srings, below. Not quite the Easter bunny, but the sea hare, Aplysia punctata, is also a common sight amongs seagrass leaves. This large mollusc is typically found on the sea-bed grazing on algae, often amongst seagrass where they leave their yellowish pink egg strings during the autumn-spring breeding season. Large egg masses from shelled Ophistobranch can also be spotted on leaves. Why not try a different kind of egg hunt this Easter. Happy hunting.
Back in 2015 we entered the #PeoplesProjects, a competition held by the Big Lottery Fund and ITV to win up to £50,000 of National Lottery money. The Peoples Projects aimed to give organisations the chance to build upon previous projects they had completed with help from the Awards For All funding scheme. At the time we didn’t even expect to make it past the first round, but you’ve got to be in it to win it, right? We thought long and hard about how Project Seagrass could make a difference to peoples lives. Although as an organisation we’re devoted to conserving seagrass ecosystems, it’s a well known fact that we depend on our marine environment. For this reason we came up with Mission SEA, which aimed to bring the ‘coast to the classroom’ and the ‘classroom to the coast’ to engage Wales’ children with our marine natural heritage. The education scheme we proposed, which would have involved 15,000 children from the counties of Gwynedd, Ceredigion and the Isle of Anglesey, sought to teach children about the resources that our seas provide, whilst inspiring them to become future guardians of our oceans. Mission SEA is about inspiring children to protect our marine environment We were absolutely delighted to make it to the final 5, and after a tough two weeks of campaigning, we’re gutted to say that we didn’t make the top 3. The other projects we were up against were as deserving as any and we wish them all the very best for the future. Reflecting on our campaign, we’ve learnt a lot, and regardless of whether we won or not, we valued the experience, exposure and support more than anything. The support we gained for our project was overwhelming and we’d like to thank each and every one of you that voted for us. Although we didn’t receive the £50,000 we needed, our Mission SEA isn’t over yet! Seagrass meadows around our British Isles have recently been shown to be in a ‘perilous state’. Mission SEA is more than a project; it’s built on a philosophy that education is key to saving our planet. By focusing on seagrass, the importance of marine habitats can be explained using things that children understand, from the golden sand of our beaches to the range of fish in our chip shops. Seagrass is an ideal focus because it’s important for sustaining our fisheries and absorbing vast amounts of CO2, whilst also providing a home for charismatic animals like seahorses. Education is key to saving our planet – getting children outdoors to experience nature is part of this. Green space is widespread across the UK and although it’s recommended schools should be ensuring that primary age children experience visits or are engaged with nature, a recent government funded study revealed that over 10% of children in England have not set foot in a park, forest, beach or any other natural environment in the last year. There is substantial growing evidence linking the natural environment with good physical health and psychological wellbeing and the ‘Biophilia Hypothesis’ states that the desire for contact with nature is partly innate. Our wealth as a nation and our individual wellbeing depend critically upon the environment. The marine environment provides us with resources essential for life and seagrass provides the processes that purify the air and water. The Welsh coastal environment alone supports over 52,000 jobs, provides around £5 billion total income to businesses in Wales and contributes to around £1.5billion of GDP to the economy of Wales. These values are hugely significant, yet the marine environment and the services it provides us are still under appreciated. There is a great potential to further increase these values through inspiring habitat and biodiversity conservation. As both physical activity and nature can positively affect wellbeing we hope that Mission SEA has the potential to leave a legacy, stimulating the next generation to appreciate the benefit of our natural coastline, while inspiring action for marine habitat and biodiversity conservation for the communities that depend on them. To Project Seagrass, the Peoples Projects was never a competition, it was never about winning or losing. We saw it as an opportunity for us to develop as an organisation, to grow stronger, more committed to our goal! Although we didn’t win the £50,000, we didn’t lose either. We’ll continue to push for our Mission SEA, to fight for the environment with no voice, and we’d love to invite you to join us. “In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”
Yesterday evening, we hosted our official Project Seagrass launch event and its safe to say it was a blast. We were excited and thrilled to see so many faces, some old and some new – we couldn’t be sure how many of you would make it despite the RSVP! Back in 2012, as merely a seed (excuse the pun) in the minds of Benjamin Jones and Richard Lilley, the duo had no idea that this seed would develop into the fruiting body that is, Project Seagrass. With guidance from Richard Unsworth and later on, Leanne Cullen Unsworth, Project Seagrass embarked on a journey to develop a unique marine conservation charity, a proudly Welsh entity, with a global vision to make an impact on marine conservation. BBC’s Dr Rhys Jones officially launched the evening giving insights into where he first came across seagrass and how amazed he was by it (Photo: Josephine Wilde) The Project Seagrass journey, like seagrass itself, seems to have developed with a life of its own, slowly expanding its root system ensuring that its gone from strength to strength. The launch last night couldn’t have been possible without the partners that we’ve rooted ourselves with. Swansea University, and particularly SEACAMS, has been integral to our achievements to date, as has Cardiff Universities Sustainable Places Research Institute, whom without, last night would not have been possible. It also couldn’t have been possible without you. Without your support we would not be where we are today! We were genuinely moved to see so many of you taking an interest in Project Seagrass and caring so deeply about what we do. To those that came, we hope you enjoyed the experience, and that the crowd we managed to gather was a special mix of interesting people. We now have a chance of winning some much needed funding to continue our work and we’d be delighted to have your support once more. www.thepeoplesprojects.org.uk/projects/view/mission-sea-inspiring-children-to-protect-our-sea The Project Seagrass quiz gave people a chance to really think about some of the services thats seagrass provide, and why theyre important (Photo: Josephine Wilde) The evening was a chance to let people learn about some of our projects, like the newly released SeagrassSpotter app (Photo: Josephine Wilde) An array of resouces were available to look at, including our seagrass colouring book, a vital part of our SEA Programme (Photo: Josephine Wilde) It was a chance for people to learn (Photo: Josephine Wilde) Project Seagrass Director, Richard Unsworth, chatting to guests about our work (Photo: Josephine Wilde)
A long-standing tradition of Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) conferences is the friendly and collegial environment and the unwavering support for early career scientists. This #CERF2015 was no exception with a multitude of leading marine scientists inspiring the next generation with #OceanOptimism as together we tackle the Grand Challenges together. This was despite a brilliant opening keynote by Berth Kerttula, Director of the National Ocean Council. ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ of marine problems! #CERF2015 was very active on social media, check out the hashtag To give you a quick history lesson, CERF conferences have been held biennially since 1971 with the aim of: ”…advancing human understanding and appreciation of the Earth’s estuaries and coasts, to the wise use and management of these environments and to making the results of their research and management actions available to their colleagues and to the public.” Such admirable ambitions are inline with our own at Project Seagrass and so CERF conferences are natural home for promoting our vision: “Our vision is that our marine ecosystems are healthy, well-managed and full of life.” At this conference a whole range of topics pertaining to seagrass meadows were discussed. Seagrass restoration techniques were presented by Per-Olav Moksnes, Louise Eriander and Eduardo Infantes of Göteborg University in Sweden, whilst Rohani Ambo-Rappe showcased us transplantation methods for seagrass restoration in the Indo-Pacific. Michael Rasheed from James Cook University, Australia was able to report on the protection of the Great Barrier Reef seagrasses. He presented work on innovative monitoring of seagrasses at high risk from coastal development. Similarly Len McKenzie (also of JCU) was able to report on the status of seagrass meadows adjacent to the highly urbanized city-state of Singapore. One of the most inspiring research projects to be discussed at CERF2015 must surely be the work of the Zostera Experimental Network (ZEN). Pamela Reynolds provided a summary of research into the biodiversity and complexity of seagrass functioning across the northern hemisphere. Such collaborative research is surely cause for #OceanOptimism!# There were some fantastic posters at the conference documenting a range of seagrass research topics. Yet it wasn’t just the established names who were doing exceptional seagrass research. There were over 700 students and early-career scientists at the conference who had produced some fantastic research and were contributing significantly to our global knowledge base. Not least Erin Voigt won best student talk #CERF2015 for her work on the effect of structural complexity and biodiversity on seagrass ecosystem function. To all those involved in the hosting of the conference – thank you, and to all those who are conducting seagrass research – thank you! Keep up the good work and see you at ISBW2016. #TeamSeagrass
The International Seagrass Biology Workshop (ISBW) is the only international meeting specifically tailored to seagrass scientists, professionals and students. Abstract submissions are now open as are proposals for workshops. All payment is via PayPal using credit/debit cards. There is one registration fee. It covers access to all parts of the conference program, including the following: Shuttle bus from Bangor (on Sunday 16th Oct and Monday 17th Oct) and return on 21st and 22nd Oct. Welcome event Field trip (excluding option extra activities e.g. diving) Poster event Conference dinner Tea and coffee Additional local trips Onsite Wifi access Accommodation bookings will include all meals (approx. £95 pppn) and need to be paid directly to Nant Gwrtheyrn. See the Accommodation page here. For more information check out the registration page here.
Indonesia is at the heart of the Coral Triangle, an area characterised by having the World’s highest marine biodiversity. With over 17000 islands, 51,00km2 of coral reef and at least 30000 km2 of seagrass its marine life is extensive and spectacular. But with a growing population, rapidly expanding GDP, and its status as the world’s 2nd biggest fisheries producer, the marine ecosystems of Indonesia are under increasing threat. These threats are not just critical for the economy but also for the maintenance of food security of the nation’s 250 million people. This is why we’re working on a project to help find ways to protect some of the nation’s important habitat. Over the last two weeks I’ve been privileged to experience the marine environment of Indonesia. I’ve been setting up the Indonesian node of a SE Asian wide project to examine how seagrass meadows contribute to food security in case study locations, and to determine at these sites how this security is threatened by widespread anthropogenic threats to the habitat. The work is a collaboration between Cardiff University, Swansea University and a series of local partners in Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. In Indonesia we have some fantastic collaborators who are helping us run great projects in Selayar and the Wakatobi, two areas of South Sulawesi. Dr Rohani Abbo Rappe, Prof Jamal Jompa and Dr Yayu LaNafie are our partners at Universitas Hasanuddin in Makassar for the work in Selayar. This is where my recent trip focussed its attention. Rohani and Yayu are both seagrass researchers widely experienced in the ecology of Indonesian seagrass meadows and have just completed annual seagrass assessments in Selayar for the CoreMap CTI programme. Research trips to Indonesia seldom start easily, I spent my first few days in the worsening smog of Jakarta arranging a research visa with the help of an old colleague of mine SteveO from my Opwall days. Jakarta is interesting, but it’s crazy, and not my kind of place, I spent two evenings trying to observe the Blood Red Moon, but got thoroughly defeated by the thick smog of Java. Fortunately the visa process was smooth, and the Indonesian research department granted me a Kitas visa quite rapidly. I was then off to Makassar and then onto Selayar to spend time developing our new project with researchers at UNHAS. Selayar is the main island of the Selayar islands archipelago, it is bordered on the west by extensive fringing reefs, mangroves and seagrasses that create an enormous potential fishing area. The east of the island is highly exposed and the sea floor rapidly descends to deep waters. On the western side we met with a great team of research assistants assembled by UNHAS to help run the field work for the project. I was supplied with a host of fabulous local food as we held a series of training sessions teaching team members how to conduct quantitative fisheries landings surveys, run household interviews and lead focus group discussions with community groups. This involved lots of early very mornings heading down to the fish landing docks after the local morning call to prayer. We surveyed a series of lift nets boats, fish fence landings and gill net landings in addition to some line fishing boats and some trap fishers. Although the pelagic fish landings of anchovy caught with large light based lift nets were huge, the landings from the seagrass based fisheries (gill nets, traps and fish fences (sero)) were all poor. Lots of juvenile fish, discards and poor CPUE. Fish landings from the shallow water seagrass fisheries of Selayar were poor. We can only hope that this is a seasonal phenomenon. Our trial interviews started to reveal a coastal seascape under widespread threat and increasing pressure. Many people described declining catches, loss of seagrass, changes in species catch and a general deterioration of the marine environment. The seagrasses of Selayar were formerly the main point of spat collection for the region for extensive Prawns and Milkfish aquaculture, but these are no longer present. We also heard descriptions of the disappearance of otters, formerly seen in seagrass collecting Urchins. Seagrass meadows of Selayar contain up to 11 species and are dominated by Enhalus acoroides and Thalassia hemprichii. It was nice to hear many references to recent dugong sightings but overall I felt that the marine environment of Selayar was in need of help. Our suspicions were confirmed as we set about collecting BRUV data of motile fauna in seagrass up and down the coast. Although we saw a large Barramundi and few large shoals of Rabbitfish, the seagrasses did not contain an abundance of fish, suggesting a system under high exploitation pressure. Looking around the Island of Selayar it’s easy to see the vast expanse of permanent fixed gear fish fences that give fish living in the shallow waters very little chance of survival, particularly the juvenile fish that need to grow and develop to form the next generation of spawning adults. BRUV footage of octopus foraging in seagrass in Selayer, SW Sulawesi, Indonesia It was a great trip to Selayar and I left the Island feeling like we had a good research team ready to collect sound data. I also felt that our project was timely as the seagrasses of Selayar need some assistance. Selayar is an example of a site slowly losing its ecosystem resilience. Our recently published paper on this topic shows how the loss of a diverse food web and the cumulative pressures of localised disturbance and decreasing water quality mean that seagrass is more susceptible to the impacts of climate change. As we see the increasing daily impacts of a very large and intense scale El Nino event across the Indo-pacific region I hope that the seagrasses of the region will survive. Hopefully the results of our project will contribute to ensuring this survival into the future. Working with UNHAS to train local research assistants to conduct household interviews. Fantastic collaboration with researchers at Universitas Hasanuddin (UNHAS) in Makassar.
