Saving Eelgrass, The Most Important Plant You’ve Likely Never Heard Of | WBUR

This story, which highlights the eelgrass restoration research of MBL Ecosystems Center scientist Mirta Teichberg, also aired on WBUR's "Morning Edition" radio show.

Matthew Long peers over the side of the research boat Calanus, into the dark water of Hadley Harbor, about 2 miles from Woods Hole.

There's a meadow down there, according to Long, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Acres of a willowy green plant called eelgrass.

Eelgrass is the dominant species of seagrass in New England, but it's little-known and largely unsung. And no wonder — it's impossible to see from shore and barely visible from the boat.

But Long assures me it's there. As his colleagues put on scuba gear to collect samples, he ticks off the reasons why healthy eelgrass meadows are critical for the New England coast.
 
“They're a nursery habitat — a lot of young fish and crustaceans and other organisms grow up in them,” he said. “If we don't have seagrasses, we don't have bay scallops at all in these ecosystems.”

Eelgrass also protects against coastal erosion, Long said. The meadows absorb some of the energy from waves before they hit the coast, and the plants' roots help stabilize mud and sand in coastal bays. Plus, they help keep climate-changing carbon out of the atmosphere by storing it in sediment. Read the rest of the article and listen to radio segment here.

Source: Saving eelgrass, the most important plant you’ve likely never heard of | WBUR