image: This is moored boats. view more
Credit: Swansea University
The findings of a study by Swansea and Cardiff University scientists highlights the need for boating activities along the UK's beautiful coastlines to be conducted in a more environmentally friendly manner.
Seagrass meadows are an important marine habitat in support of our fisheries and commonly reside in shallow sheltered embayments typical of the locations that provide an attractive option for mooring boats. Research led by scientists at Swansea University provides evidence for how swinging boat moorings have damaged seagrass meadows throughout the UK (and globally) and create lifeless halos within the seagrass. The creation of these halos devoid of seagrass fragments the meadow and reduces its support for important marine biodiversity.
The seagrass Zostera marina (known as eelgrass) is extensive across the northern hemisphere, forming critical fisheries habitat and creating efficient long-term stores of carbon in sediments. This is the first research to have quantified this impact on eelgrass.
The study "Rocking the Boat: Damage to Eelgrass by Swinging Boat Moorings", was led by Richard Unsworth and Beth Williams at Swansea University where it formed the basis of Beth's MSc thesis. The research was conducted in conjunction with Benjamin Jones and Dr Leanne Cullen-Unsworth of Project Seagrass and the Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University has been published in the Open Access journal Frontiers in Plant Science.Lead author Dr Richard Unsworth, said; "In the present study we examined swinging chain boat moorings in seagrass meadows across a range of sites in the United Kingdom to determine whether such moorings have a negative impact on the seagrass Zostera marina at the local and meadow scale. "We provide conclusive evidence from multiple sites throughout the UK that Z. marina is damaged by swinging chain moorings leading to a direct loss of at least 6 ha of United Kingdom seagrass. Each swinging chain mooring was found to result in the loss of 122 m2 of seagrass. Importantly loss was found to be restricted to the area surrounding the mooring and the impact did not appear to translate to a meadow scale. This loss of United Kingdom seagrass from boat moorings is small but significant at a local scale. This is because it fragments existing meadows and ultimately reduces their resilience to other stressors (e.g. storms, anchor damage and poor water quality).
"Boat moorings are prevalent in seagrass globally and it is likely this impairs their ecosystem functioning and resilience. Given the extensive ecosystem service value of seagrasses in terms of factors such as carbon storage and fish habitat such loss is of cause for concern". "Our research highlights the need for boating activities in and around sensitive marine habitats such as seagrass to be conducted in a sustainable fashion using appropriate environmentally friendly mooring systems" stated Dr Unsworth.
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- Link to the full study "Rocking the Boat: Damage to Eelgrass by Swinging Boat Moorings" go to: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2017.01309/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Plant_Science&id=262774
- For more information about the Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University go to http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/sustainable-places
- For more information about Project Seagrass go to http://www.projectseagrass.org/
- Swansea University is a world-class, research-led, dual campus university. The University was established in 1920 and was the first campus university in the UK. It currently offers around 350 undergraduate courses and 350 postgraduate courses to circa 20,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
The University's 46-acre Singleton Park Campus is located in beautiful parkland with views across Swansea Bay. The University's 65-acre science and innovation Bay Campus, which opened in September 2015, is located a few miles away on the eastern approach to the city. It has the distinction of having direct access to a beach and its own seafront promenade. Both campuses are close to the Gower Peninsula, the UK's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Swansea is ranked the top university in Wales and is currently The Times and The Sunday Times 'Welsh University of the Year'. It is also ranked within the top 350 best universities in the world in the Times Higher Education World University rankings.
The results of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 showed the University has achieved its ambition to be a top 30 research University, soaring up the league table to 26th in the UK, with the 'biggest leap among research-intensive institutions' (Times Higher Education, December 2014) in the UK.
The University has ambitious expansion plans as it moves towards its centenary in 2020, as it continues to extend its global reach and realising its domestic and international ambitions.
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Journal
Frontiers in Plant Science