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Guest Blog

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Food for thoughtGuest BlogResearch
March 19, 2023

Visiting one of the worlds most remote seagrass meadows

Eva Rothausler On a narrow stretch along the northern-central coast of Chile, the seagrass Heterozostera nigricaulis (syn. Zostera nigricaulis, Heterozostera tasmanica) occurs in three isolated patches no more than 300 km apart. It is a common intertidal to subtidal seagrass in the Zosteracea family and is found growing in protected and soft-bottom areas. Heterozostera nigricaulis is native to the southern coast of Australia (Coyer et al. 2013), from where it colonized Chile some 100s to 1000s years ago (Smith et al. 2018). In Australia, they form extensive meadows that produce large quantities of non-buoyant seeds and specialized vegetative rhizomes used…
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August 25, 2022

Official words for seagrass in Seychellois Creole

An outreach initiative to entice local ownership of the protection of seagrass meadows Seychelles is not the only country or territory where seagrass has had to play catch up with other types of coastal wetlands and other marine ecosystems. To most Seychellois, up until recently, anything plant-like which is green and comes from the sea has been categorised as gomon; be it seaweed or seagrass. Formally, seagrass has not had a name or term to define it in the country’s native language, Seychellois Creole. Matthew Morgan The team behind the Coastal Wetlands and Climate Change project, whose main objective was…
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Guest Blog
January 16, 2022

Can seagrass help reduce microplastic pollution?

Guest blog by Lucy Wust Microplastics is a term that is worryingly on the rise in the media. They are found almost everywhere, and their polluting and damaging effects are felt heavily on marine environments. Can seagrass present a solution in our fight to tackle this widespread plastic contamination? What are microplastics and where do they come from? Microplastics are tiny plastic particles defined as being less than five millimetres in length. There are two categories of microplastic: primary and secondary. The category the microplastic is in tells us how it entered the environment. Primary microplastics are plastic fragments that…
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Editorial
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Guest Blog
November 10, 2021

What is blue carbon?

By Jenny Black The Carbon Cycle It is likely that we have all heard of carbon but what might not be known is the fundamental role it plays in our ecosystems. Carbon will naturally move between the atmosphere and the earth’s surface through interactions between organisms and ecosystems in a process known as the ‘carbon cycle’. In the carbon cycle, carbon can be a gas in the form of carbon dioxide (CO₂), or solid within organisms and rocks. On land, in what is known as terrestrial ecosystems, CO₂ can be captured, or sequestered, from the atmosphere and stored within plants…
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Guest Blog
April 7, 2021

An East African Marine Safari

By Sam Freeman In the summer of 2018, after finishing my penultimate year of my undergrad Marine & Freshwater Biology degree, I travelled to Watamu. Watamu is a small but beautiful coastal town just north of Mombasa, in Kenya – East Africa. Watamu is famous for its picturesque sandy-white beaches and tourist filled hotels dedicated to ecotourism. I volunteered on the marine programme at an environmental conservation NGO called A Rocha Kenya for two months. They are based right in the middle of East Africa’s oldest marine protected area, the Watamu Marine National Park (WMNP). The park covers a 10…
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Editorial
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Guest Blog
November 13, 2020

Seagrasses starred in Ocean Hackathon Mexico 2020

Written by Maru Bernal Last October 9th, the Ocean Hackathon® 2020 took place in Mexico City. This is an event in which multidisciplinary teams have access to international databases and have 48 hours to develop a pilot project or proof of concept that targets an ocean-related problem. This year’s event, organized by IFAL (French Institute of Latin America), had seagrasses as protagonists when the team called “Carbón ¡Oh no!” won the first place with a project that targeted seagrass beds conservation. In spite of their relevance and vulnerability, seagrass beds constitute one of the least protected ecosystems on the planet.…
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Editorial
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Guest Blog
August 27, 2020

Who knew saving the planet could be so peaceful?

Like many of you, WWF staff have been working from spare rooms, kitchen tables and the occasional garden patio for the past few months. When a call came to join our partners at Project Seagrass and Swansea University on a seagrass seed collection trip to North Wales, it was a welcome break from the (new) norm. WWF has been working closely with Project Seagrass, Swansea University and Sky Ocean Rescue to conduct the biggest seagrass restoration project undertaken in the UK - aiming to restore 20,000 m2 of the marine plant, following the disappearance of up to 92 per cent of the…
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Guest Blog
July 15, 2020

Two Aquarists went to Wales

Elise and myself look after all the native marine species at The Deep, an aquarium in Hull. I’m very new to all things native having previously worked with penguins and tropical fish but Elise is a pro, thankfully accepting me as her apprentice. We first heard about the work of Project Seagrass and Swansea Uni when Elise went to the National Aquarium Conference (NAC) in late 2019. From there we attended the first BIAZA seagrass focus group meeting organised by Sam and only a few weeks after that we set off on the train to Wales. The seven hour journey…
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Eve Uncles
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Guest Blog
June 29, 2020

From studies to seagrass

Mike, Sam, Sam and Owen all started out as students with a love for the ocean on their doorsteps, over the summer they became 'underwater gardeners' and joined the Seagrass Ocean Rescue team from the collection of almost a million seeds through to planting 1.5 hectares of seagrass in Dale, Pembrokeshire. Mike Parker, Sam Files, Sam Petts and Owen Maddocks are four students from Swansea University, they met three years ago through the sub-aqua club and have logged their fair share of dives together ever since. Over a Zoom call in April, I had the opportunity to ask them about…
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Editorial
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Guest Blog
June 23, 2020

Project Seagrass at Awel y Mor Primary

We were extremely excited to build up a relationship with Project Seagrass. Being asked to take part has enabled us to develop our skills and knowledge as staff to help progress with our own school project ‘AYM Project Plastic’. The children have absolutely loved this experience! They have gained lots of skills and knowledge. More importantly for us as a school, many of our pupils find it difficult to think about what they aspire to be, however since working with Project Seagrass many now talk about their aspirations to become marine biologists and are very eager for us to become…
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