Sea Grasses Conservation Efforts Urged

Saying sea grasses are harbingers of a coastal ecosystem, University of Maryland scientists are urging a worldwide conservation effort to preserve them.

Sea grasses are the coal mine canaries of the costal ecosystems. (They) can provide resource managers advance signs of deteriorating ecological conditions caused by poor water quality and pollution, said William Dennison of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and a co-author of an article in the December issue of Bioscience.

Sea grasses, a group of flowering plants that adapted to exist fully submerged, influence the physical, chemical and biological environments of coastal waters, scientists said. They provide critical habitat for aquatic life, alter water flow and can help mitigate nutrient and sediment pollution.

The article, in which U.S. and international scientists call for conservation measures, said coastal development, population growth and the resulting nutrient and sediment pollution contributed to large-scale losses of sea grasses worldwide.

This report is a call to the world’s coastal managers that we need to do more to protect sea grass habitat, said co-author Tim Carruthers, also of the Center for Environmental Science. Sea grasses are just one of the many keys to maintaining healthy coastal ecosystems and their biodiversity.