Happy World Seagrass Day!
Seagrass is of vital importance to the marine environment and also provides us with a number of important ecosystem services.
- Here are some of the many benefits we gain from healthy seagrass beds;Seagrass roots help trap and stabilise seabed sediments, improving water quality and also helping buffer coastlines and reduce erosion.
- Seagrass beds support many species and are rich in biodiversity, they are nursery grounds for fish and help form a vital element of the food web by offering feeding grounds for larger species.
They are excellent stores of ‘blue carbon’
Seagrass provides valuable nursery habitat for 21.5% of top 25 landed species globally.
Seagrass can capture and bury nitrogen and phosphorus
Seagrass can indicate water quality due to their sensitivity to a changing environment.
These are just some very brief snapshots of the benefits healthy and functioning seagrass beds can provide. However, seagrass has been under pressures and a significant portion of global, and UK seagrass has been lost.
Submit any of your seagrass sightings to Seagrass Spotter and enjoy World Seagrass Day!