Background:
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| Terra Ceia Aquatic & Buffer Preserve in Tampa Bay, Florida. |
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Seagrasses form one of the world’s most productive marine plant communities, with some of the most extensive beds occurring in Florida’s estuaries and near shore coastal waters (>2.5 million acres). The communities provide food and habitat for commercial and sport fishing species (e.g. spotted sea trout, tarpon, pink shrimp, spiny lobster), as well as for many types of wading birds and endangered species such as manatees and sea turtles.
However, seagrass meadows are declining worldwide, primarily due to human-induced disturbances. Declines in seagrass coverage in Florida, and Tampa Bay in particular, have been linked to pollution, worsening water quality, coastal development, loss of tidal marshes, and mechanical damage from dredge-filling and prop scarring. About 35% of the seagrass beds have been lost in Florida, with turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) the most heavily affected. The greatest impacts occur in estuaries like Tampa Bay, which has experienced a greater than 70% decrease in seagrass.
The slow recovery of turtle grass after various anthropogenic impacts, the continued growth of Florida’s population, and subsequent increase of shallow draft boats, all suggest that damage to seagrass beds will continue. Thus, seagrass recovery and restoration is a high priority in the Tampa Bay area and a focus of the USGS Gulf of Mexico Estuarine Integrated Science - Tampa Bay Pilot Study.
Presently, replanting of damaged turtle grass beds requires damaging a donor bed to obtain transplants because of lack of nurseries. There is both a need for development of nursery stock to supply transplants to impacted areas and techniques to increase growth and survival of damaged beds. Our long-term goal is to formulate procedures for enhancement of growth of turtle grass and to develop land-based nurseries that would remove the need to take plants from donor beds.
The project combined experiments in seagrass ecology, biogeochemistry, microbiology, and analysis of chemical contaminants at two locations: Little Cockroach Bay in the Terra Ceia area and Feather Sound in Old Tampa Bay. The first is adjacent to an aquatic preserve and has healthy seagrass beds near the test site. The second is a highly impacted area and very little native seagrass remains.
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