Seagrass meadows can be a powerful nature-based climate solution and help sustain communities hard-hit by stressors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, but these important ecosystems continue to decline.

To understand resiliency of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) communities with distance from the river mouth, SAV monitoring data, consisting of nine taxa, were analyzed in the lower St. Johns River, Florida, from 2001 to 2019. Patterns were evaluated with changes in salinity, turbidity, and weather events (e.g., hurricanes).

Surprisingly, minerals formed in restored seagrass beds can offset human-caused acidification miles away.

Seagrasses are a functional group, not a taxonomic group, of angiosperms (flowering plants), i.e. various seagrass families do not necessary have to be closely related.

These endangered predators enhance the genetic diversity of eelgrass, making their threatened seagrass surroundings more resilient.

The study is a blueprint for capitalizing on this habitat's capacity to store carbon.

Seagrass beds are habitat for many commercially and recreationally important finfish and shellfish during some stage of their life. In the northern Gulf of Mexico, turtlegrass, a type of seagrass, is a critical foundation species that provides energy for food webs and shelter and foraging grounds for many species.

Seagrasses are grass-like flowering plants that live completely submerged in marine and estuarine waters. Although seagrasses occur throughout the coastal areas of Florida, they are most abundant in Florida Bay and from Tarpon Springs northward to Apalachee Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, which are two of the most extensive seagrass beds in continental North America.

Coastal ecosystems are dynamic and productive areas that are vulnerable to effects of global climate change. Despite their potentially limited spatial extent, submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) beds function in coastal ecosystems as foundation species, and perform important ecological services. However, limited understanding of the factors controlling SAV distribution and abundance across multiple salinity zones (fresh, intermediate, brackish, and saline) in the northern Gulf of Mexico restricts the ability of models to accurately predict resource availability

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) plays important roles in shallow lakes. In addition to its refuge effect for zooplankton, one key role of SAV is to provide diverse ecological niches to these organisms. The reduction of habitat complexity due to loss of SAV might thus have huge effects on zooplankton communities. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between SAV abundance and composition and zooplankton functional diversity and community structure.