(Press-News.org) Results of a five-year monitoring effort to repair seagrass damaged in a boat grounding incident suggest that restoration techniques such as replanting seagrass can speed recovery time. The finding is included in a new report released today by NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
The National Marine Sanctuaries Conservation Series report, "N-Control Seagrass Restoration Monitoring Report Monitoring Events 2003-2008," presents results of efforts to repair a nearly 1,000-square-foot (92.8-square-meter) swath of seagrass that was damaged on May 29, 2001, when a 45-foot power boat, the N-Control, grounded in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
Seagrass beds are an important habitat in the sanctuary. They provide nurseries and homes for numerous species of fish and invertebrates and serve as storm surge buffers for the low-lying Florida Keys. However, shallow seagrass beds in the Florida Keys are being damaged by vessel groundings. In 2007, an estimated 217 reported boat groundings occurred in the sanctuary, with approximately 80 percent occurring on seagrass beds. Vessel groundings damage seagrass, leaving barren areas where marine life once flourished.
Restoration techniques at the N-Control grounding site included replanting seagrass and installing stakes for birds to roost on. The use of stakes to attract birds provides a natural way to fertilize seagrass beds as bird feces are high in nutrients needed by the growing seagrass. Among the key findings in the report:
After five years, the damaged area is gaining seagrass and coral coverage, though it hasn't reached pre-grounding baseline levels.
Rather than leaving the site to recover on its own, restoration activities have significantly reduced the amount of time required for damaged seagrass beds in the monitoring area to recover.
"This report highlights the critical science needed to understand and restore our sensitive marine habitats," said Sean Morton, superintendent, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. "It's also an important reminder that boaters need to know where they are going before heading out on the water to prevent groundings in the first place. Make sure you have up-to-date NOAA nautical charts, and always pay attention to the signs, channel markers and informational buoys."
Currently, more than 30 seagrass restoration projects are underway at the sanctuary.
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary protects 2,900 square nautical miles of critical marine habitat, including coral reef, hard bottom, seagrass meadow, mangrove communities and sand flats. NOAA and the state of Florida manage the sanctuary.
INFORMATION:
The full report can be found online: http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/science/conservation/ncontrol.html
NOAA's mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Find us online and on Facebook.
New report outlines restoration activities to speed seagrass recovery in the Florida Keys
2010-12-17
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Tiny 3-D images shed light on origin of Earth's core
2010-12-17
To answer the big questions, it often helps to look at the smallest details. That is the approach Stanford mineral physicist Wendy Mao is taking to understanding a major event in Earth's inner history. Using a new technique to scrutinize how minute amounts of iron and silicate minerals interact at ultra-high pressures and temperatures, she is gaining insight into the biggest transformation Earth has ever undergone – the separation of its rocky mantle from its iron-rich core approximately 4.5 billion years ago.
The technique, called high-pressure nanoscale X-ray computed ...
Extinctions, loss of habitat harm evolutionary diversity
2010-12-17
A mathematically driven evolutionary snapshot of woody plants in four similar climates around the world has given scientists a fresh perspective on genetic diversity and threats posed by both extinctions and loss of habitat.
The message from the study, appearing online ahead of publication in Ecology Letters, says lead author Hélène Morlon, is that evolutionary diversity -- the millions of years of evolutionary innovations contained in present-day species -- is more sensitive to extinctions or loss of habitat than long thought. And that, she adds, means conservation efforts ...
Emotional intelligence peaks as we enter our 60s, research suggests
2010-12-17
Older people have a hard time keeping a lid on their feelings, especially when viewing heartbreaking or disgusting scenes in movies and reality shows, psychologists have found. But they're better than their younger counterparts at seeing the positive side of a stressful situation and empathizing with the less fortunate, according to research from the University of California, Berkeley.
A team of researchers led by UC Berkeley psychologist Robert Levenson is tracking how our emotional strategies and responses change as we age. Their findings – published over the past ...
First measurement of magnetic field in Earth's core
2010-12-17
A University of California, Berkeley, geophysicist has made the first-ever measurement of the strength of the magnetic field inside Earth's core, 1,800 miles underground.
The magnetic field strength is 25 Gauss, or 50 times stronger than the magnetic field at the surface that makes compass needles align north-south. Though this number is in the middle of the range geophysicists predict, it puts constraints on the identity of the heat sources in the core that keep the internal dynamo running to maintain this magnetic field.
"This is the first really good number we've ...
PSA test better predicts cancer in men taking prostate-shrinking drug
2010-12-17
The PSA screening test for prostate cancer is not perfect. It can indicate cancer when none is present and miss life-threatening tumors. But a new study suggests the test is more reliable in men taking dutasteride (Avodart®), a drug widely prescribed to shrink an enlarged prostate gland.
Dutasteride lowers PSA levels by about half within six months. But the researchers found that even a slight rise in PSA levels among men taking the drug was a stronger indicator of prostate cancer, particularly aggressive tumors that require early diagnosis and treatment, than rising ...
Researchers suggest diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder are lacking
2010-12-17
(Boston) - Current diagnostic procedures for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) fail to adequately reflect research into the broad nature of a traumatic event, according to a study that will appear in the January print issue of Psychological Bulletin.
The relevancy of an individual's subjective experience in determining what constitutes a traumatic event has been a source of debate among PTSD specialists for years. The study concludes that both objective and subjective factors are relevant and that current PTSD criteria are missing several reactions that many trauma ...
Key information about breast cancer risk and development is found in 'junk' DNA
2010-12-17
A new genetic biomarker that indicates an increased risk for developing breast cancer can be found in an individual's "junk" (non-coding) DNA, according to a new study featuring work from researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech and their colleagues.
The multidisciplinary team found that longer DNA sequences of a repetitive microsatellite were much more likely to be present in breast cancer patients than healthy volunteers. The particular repeated DNA sequence in the control (promoter) region of the estrogen-related receptor gamma (ERR-γ) ...
Tennis star's hospitalization for altitude sickness
2010-12-17
New Rochelle, NY, December 16, 2010 – Former tennis champion Martina Navratilova was hospitalized for pulmonary edema—fluid build-up in the lungs—while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, drawing attention to the high risk of acute mountain sickness (AMS) and high altitude pulmonary edema among climbers of high peaks. A timely study in a recent issue of High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com), warned of the risks and serious medical outcomes associated with climbing Kilimanjaro and demonstrated that prior ...
Mapping faculty social networks helps female faculty move ahead at NJIT
2010-12-17
Long before Facebook introduced its hot new Social Graph app, researchers in the ADVANCE project at NJIT were pioneering the use of social network mapping to help women scientists and engineers supercharge their careers.
"Universities are more than buildings and balance sheets. They're webs of human interaction," said Nancy Steffen-Fluhr, director of NJIT's Murray Center for Women in Technology and the ADVANCE project leader. "The complex structure of those webs is largely invisible to the people embedded in them, however -- especially women scientists and engineers. ...
Brief clarifies Social Security's value for women
2010-12-17
Without Social Security, research indicates that about half of women age 65 and older would be living in poverty. With the program in place, the poverty rate for women falls to 12 percent. These facts — paired with recommended future courses of action — are presented in the latest installment of the Public Policy & Aging Research Brief series from the National Academy on an Aging Society, the public policy branch of The Gerontological Society of America (GSA).
The new publication, "For Millions of Older Women, Social Security Is a Lifeline," was funded by grant support ...