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Research

Research

Legacy of ancient ice ages shapes how seagrasses respond to environmental threats today

Deep evolution casts a longer shadow than previously thought, scientists report in a new paper published the week of Aug. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Smithsonian scientists and colleagues looked at eelgrass communities—the foundation of many coastal marine food webs along the north Atlantic and Pacific coasts—and discovered their ancient genetic history can play a stronger role than the present-day environment in determining their size, structure and who lives in them. And this could have implications for how well eelgrasses adapt to threats like climate change. About a half-million years ago, when the world was…
Benjamin Jones
August 1, 2022
Press ReleaseResearch

Seagrass meadows are reliable fishing grounds for food

A new study shows that seagrass fisheries provide a reliable safety-net for poor fishermen, since they perceive those habitats to maintain large fish catches over time. Surprisingly, even more so than coral reef fisheries, which people normally associate with small-scale fishery. Seagrass meadows are routinely used as a fishing habitat across the Indo-Pacific region to sustain millions of households by providing fish and other animals for food and income from fishing. A new study in Ocean and Coastal Management investigated how and why households use seagrass meadows across Cambodia, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the Indo-Pacific region by conducting…
Benjamin Jones
June 15, 2022
CampaignsPS UpdatesResearch

Spotlight on Scotland: The Sound of Jura

The weather in Scotland has been beautiful recently making the start of my Spring fieldwork very enjoyable - although surface water temperatures of 7 or 8℃ was a swift reminder that winter has only just left us! Last week I was very lucky to be shown around the Taynish peninsula (Loch Sween, Linne Mhuirich and the Sound of Jura) by members of the community group ‘Friends of the Sound of Jura.’ The Sound of Jura is home to some of the most fascinating and diverse marine life in Scotland and this community group seeks to protect the Sound from threats…
Richard Lilley
April 25, 2019
EducationInternshipsResearch

Isadora Sinha on her Project Seagrass Experience

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 stumbled upon Project Seagrass rather unexpectedly and had no idea what it was all about. Upon reading further into what seagrass is and the work Project Seagrass does, I was very keen on joining the team to learn more and take part. The Project Seagrass team are the nicest people…
Editorial
September 6, 2018
Guest BlogInternshipsResearch

Seagrass citizen science: investigations into a potential seagrass saviour

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 any other child’s obsession with the beach. My parents often remind me that after hours of poking around in rockpools and catching crabs I would throw tantrums when it was time to leave the coast and return to my landlocked home. As I became older and words like career and…
Editorial
August 16, 2018
AwarenessCampaignsResearch

Global fisheries threatened by loss of seagrass

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 as mussels and prawns) are declining. A major problem is that policies and plans designed to ensure the sustainability of our fisheries almost exclusively target fishing activity. But we also need to protect the critical habitats that these fisheries also depend on. Most species that are fished require more than…
Editorial
May 20, 2018
Press ReleaseResearch

Waste Not, Want Not. Discards that could feed those in poverty

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 – some estimate as little as 3.7% total catch, compared to more than 60% for some large-scale shrimp trawlers. Small-scale or artisanal fisheries – for which there is no universal definition – are generally considered more sustainable than their large-scale industrial counterparts, but there is increasing evidence that shows this is not always the…
Benjamin Jones
February 26, 2018
Press ReleaseResearch

Sewage and livestock waste is killing Britain’s seagrass meadows

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 in a coal mine, their health can be used as an indicator of the condition of coastal areas. We know that the seagrass meadows surrounding the UK are in a perilous state of decline, and our recently published research has now uncovered one of the biggest causes. Our study suggests that a major…
Benjamin Jones
February 15, 2018
Press ReleaseResearch

Seagrass meadows key fishing ground globally

Fishing in seagrass occurs around the globe; if there is seagrass (and people) there is fishing. Still, the nature and extent of fisheries in seagrass is poorly understood. It is a prerequisite for natural resource management to understand resource exploitation, therefore we decided to investigate this further. Seagrasses are plants that grow in the shallow ocean. The seagrass attracts many different types of animals, to live, forage, or seek shelter. These animals are collected by humans for subsistence (food), commercial and recreational purposes. Across the globe the reasons for fishing differs, it is more common to fish for recreational purposes in…
Editorial
November 16, 2017
AwarenessIssuesResearch

How hurricanes such as Irma and Maria can devastate the Caribbean marine environment

 Hurricane Irma – one of the strongest on record to hit the Caribbean – recently scoured the islands leaving catastrophic damage in its wake. And just as we began to piece together the devastating and potentially long–term impacts of Irma, Hurricane Maria has now left another path of destruction. Puerto Rico, the British dependency of the Turks and Caicos, and many other Caribbean islands have suffered what have been described as “apocalyptic conditions”. When the world talks of the tragic and devastating consequences of severe hurricanes, the focus tends to be on the land, and the people who live in affected communities.…
Benjamin Jones
September 25, 2017