Seagrass Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is the world's leading non-profit oceanographic research organization. Our mission is to explore and understand the ocean and to educate scientists, students, decision-makers, and the public.
Woods Hole, Mass. — When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020 with associated travel restrictions, Matthew Long thought his students could shift their overseas research projects to instead study the seagrass meadow ecosystem in Waquoit Bay. It’s a shallow, micro-tidal estuary on the south side of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, near the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) where Long is an ...
Coastal ecosystems also capture and store massive amounts of carbon in both plants and sediments for centuries or longer. Together, the plants and soils in tidal salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests sequester roughly ten times more carbon per unit area than terrestrial ecosystems.
These can include seagrass meadows, salt marshes, mangroves, wetlands, estuaries, reefs, and bays often linked in an intricate network of physical, chemical, and biological interchanges above and below the water.
Blue carbon refers to carbon taken up by coastal ecosystems, including seagrass meadows, mangroves, and salt marshes. These plants store some carbon in their roots. But these ecosystems are able to absorb much more carbon than a comparable amount of tropical rainforest. That's because dead and dying leaves, branches, and other organisms settle into sediment that's flooded with water, which ...
Jellyfish and other ocean "jellies" may be best known for their painful stings, but they play an important role in ecosystems from seagrass beds to the deep sea. Join us to hear about the techniques scientists are using to study these amazing creatures, and what jellies can teach us about the ocean’s health—and our own.