Climate change is an ever-pressing concern, with innovative ways to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere a continued focus of scientists. One such carbon sequestration method turns to an unlikely sink—seagrass—a marine flowering plant (angiosperm) that is found in shallow coastal waters up to 50m depth on all continents except Antarctica.
Loss of seagrass is a huge problem beyond carbon.
- Breeding ground for fish (lots of wrasse)
- Food for turtles and manatees/dugongs
Loas of seagrass causes ecosystems to crash :(
This was a problem that I had never even heard of before. Ugh. It seems like ecologically it’s just bad news after bad news.
There’s a replanting program near where I am, and its insanely labour intensive.
Harvesting seeds. Growing them in tanks. And then plenting them in the ocean. A lot of acuba divers, a lot of time. Super time consuming.
And the area to reseed? Well, the total area to replant is maybe 66km² (25 square miles).
The more we know about this, the better. Depressing as it may be, learning about these means eventually we may be able to revive them.
