Root for Eelgrass: Restoring Coastal Nurseries

Show notes:  Beneath the thin blue line of the ocean’s surface lies an underwater meadow of grass. In Great Bay and coastal New Hampshire, these flowing fields of green are nurseries for young fish, an anchor for sediments, and a sign that our ecosystems are healthy. However, these life-supporting aquatic pastures face new threats. Here, in the constantly moving waters where rivers meet the sea, scientists, students, and communities are working together to bring back one of New Hampshire’s most vital—but also fragile—coastal habitats: eelgrass. These underwater meadows once stretched far and wide across the bay, but recently, storms, changing water temperatures, and pollution are having an impact on our local eelgrass species, Zostera marina.  A new restoration project—backed by local towns, oyster farmers, and researchers at the University of New Hampshire—is testing innovative ways to help these plants return and thrive. From transplanting shoots to exploring seed-based restoration, the work happening here could shape the future of eelgrass recovery across the country. Act 1: What’s slender like an eel, and requires clear, cold water to thrive? Explore eelgrass 101 with Trevor Mattera, Habitat Program Manager with the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP), as he takes us through the past, present, and future of Zostera marina in New Hampshire waters.  Act 2: Strap on your snorkel and float through an eelgrass meadow with Matthew Allen, New Hampshire Sea Grant’s Undergraduate Doyle Fellow, who spent this past summer spending as much time as humanly possible in a wetsuit, assisting Trevor and the team at PREP with their Great Bay Estuary Oyster & Eelgrass Restoration project. Experience a day in the life working to restore eelgrass and hear a harrowing story about mating horseshoe crabs. Act 3: You can’t have thriving eelgrass without clean water. Gretchen Young, the Deputy Director of Technical Services at the City of Rochester, New Hampshire, explains how this restoration project came to be funded, and why municipalities are joining forces to address nitrogen pollution in Great Bay.  Guest Speakers:  Trevor Mattera, Ph.D., Coastal Ecosystems Extension Specialist, New Hampshire Sea Grant Matthew Allen, Undergraduate Doyle Fellow, New Hampshire Sea Grant Gretchen Young, Deputy Director of Technical Services, City of Rochester, New Hampshire Hosted by: Brian Yurasits, Science Communication Specialist, New Hampshire Sea Grant Co-Hosted by: Erik Chapman, Director, New Hampshire Sea Grant Produced by: Brian Yurasits Further reading: Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership Doyle Undergraduate Fellowship Municipal Alliance for Adaptive Management New Hampshire Sea Grant works to enhance our relationship with the coastal environment to sustain healthy and resilient ecosystems, economies, and communities through integrated research, extension, education, and communications efforts. Based at the University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Sea Grant is one of 34 programs in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program, a state-federal partnership serving America’s coasts. Learn more by visiting: seagrant.unh.edu The Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP) is a collaboration-driven, local organization and National Estuary Program. Through community collaboration with NH and Southern ME Towns, researchers, and local organizations, they work to monitor, restore, and protect the health of the lakes, rivers, streams, and the Great Bay and Hampton-Seabrook estuaries in the Piscataqua Region Watershed. The University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension is an equal opportunity educator and employer. UNH, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, and New Hampshire counties cooperating. Direct inquiries to [email protected].