The Effect of Seagrass on Motile Creature Biodiversity

Max Hoffman, Melissa Martinez

Introduction:

Seagrass is a flowering plant (angiosperm) that lives in the sea (Cornell, What is

Seagrass?). Just like flowering plants on land, they have leaves, roots, veins, and produce

flowers (Waters, Hannah. "Seagrass and Seagrass Beds."). There are around 60 different seagrass

species (Cornell, "What is Seagrass?"). Seagrass grows all around the world where there is salt

water, like the ocean (Waters, "Seagrass and Seagrass Beds."). Seagrass is also known as the

lungs of the sea as one square meter of seagrass can produce 10 liters of oxygen a day (Waters,

"Seagrass and Seagrass Beds.").

Different types of sea creatures live in Seagrass, such as sharks, fishes, turtles etc.

(Waters, "Seagrass and Seagrass Beds."). Seagrass provides food and shelter for 70% of all sea

life (Species, By. "Importance of Seagrass."). Seagrass is endangered because of human impacts,

such as dredging and pollution (Boness, "Endangered Seagrasses Can Store Carbon.").

Considering the amount of sea life that lives inside seagrass, this is a worrying topic without a

doubt, that requires us to look deeper into the situation to try to find out what will happen to the

creatures living in a seagrass, if it is eliminated.

San Diego was home to a large amount of seagrass beds, until a large amount of dredging

occurred to build the bays and ports in San Diego. However, there are still seagrass beds in

mission bay and other parts of the San Diego shores. This project, is to study the diversity of

motile (creatures capable of motion) creatures inside seagrass patches versus bare patches where

seagrass no longer grows (Merriam-Webster). Our goal is to understand how a lack, or a large
loss of seagrass will affect biodiversity in the bays of the world where seagrass is ceasing to

grow.

As stated previously, 70% of all sea life is provided for by seagrass. This is an extremely

worrying statistic, when considering that the seagrass population is being threatened by human

impact. One question this raises, is what will happen to that sea life once the seagrass dies out?

Seagrass beds obviously carry a huge amount of biodiversity, so what will happen to that

biodiversity once the seagrass dies out? By studying motile creatures particularly, we will see

particularly how creatures that can enter and leave seagrass beds react to being in bare patches

versus seagrass beds, and see how much biodiversity the bare patches hold as opposed to the

seagrass patches by using the ARMS units.

Methods:

On May 25th, our ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures) were deployed near

Fiesta Island in Mission Bay. They were placed 200 feet apart from each other, under 3 feet of

water. On September 20, we recovered them, to begin work on our project. Our goal was to

understand the effects of seagrass disappearing. For our experiment, we are going to look at the

amount of motile creatures in seagrass patches as opposed to bare patches. This would help us

see what effects seagrass has on motile creatures, which species of motile creatures the seagrass

has, and what will happen to the creatures once the seagrass dies out. Our controlled variables

were ARMS X, Y, Z, R, and Q (to a slightly lesser extent due to being surrounded entirely by

seagrass as opposed to being in a true bare patch). Our sample size was all 5 ARMS units.

The ARMS units had been in the bay for about 4 months. There were 9 plates per ARMS

unit, divided up among 5 ARMS units. We identified and documented all of our work in multiple

groups. There were three different groups where each group had to either analyze motile
creatures, analyze sessile creatures or be a swimmer. The swimmers went to the bay and brought

the ARMS back to school. The student photographer took photos of all the organisms so that we

could then use the images for other work. The motile and sessile groups separated all of the

organisms, and put them into vials with labels that we had created for each organism, and then

sterilized them with ethanol. After taking pictures of our organisms and plates, we used a

program named CPCe to analyze all of our data and see how much of the ARMS units were

covered by (particularly) sessile creatures.

ARMS plates are 9-10 inch PVC plates. They are all connected to a base plate by one rod

in order to mimic a coral reef structure. ARMS are used to collect different types of data about

sea life and the effects of the environment in which these organisms are in. To gather the data and

prevent as many inaccuracies as possible, we did our best to distribute the ARMS as evenly as

possible. All were under 3 feet of water, 200 feet apart to try to make sure all the info was as

accurate as possible. We controlled these variables to attempt to ensure that all the info was as

accurate as possible. The only confounding variables in the job of the ARMS and collecting data

were smaller things, such as small motile creatures escaping the ARMS during recovery

(especially when mollusks covered the ARMS so completely that the clamps couldnt fully grip

them to pull them out). That being said, we still managed to pull an octopus out of at least 1

ARMS unit.
 Results:

Figure 1: Amount of Motile Creatures per Plate Figure 2: Motile Creature Percentage Breakdown

Figure 1 shows amount of motile creatures found in
each plate. The graph shows how the ARMS units
placed inside seagrass had many more motile
creatures than those placed in bare patches. There
was an average of 52 creatures per ARMS found in
seagrass, whereas that number drops to 18 creatures
per ARMS in bare patches.
Figure 2 shows the percentages of motile creatures
that we found in seagrass versus bare patches. 83.2%
of the motile creatures we found were in seagrass,
compared to only 16.8% in bare patches. This shows
us there were many more motile creatures in
seagrass versus bare patches.

Conclusion:

Our results show us that there were more motile creatures in the seagrass than in bare

patches. There is a significant enough difference for us to be able to reject the null hypothesis,

which is the possibility that our results were due to chance. This being said, due to a few

unexpected confounding variables, our data could have possibly shown even greater differences

in the seagrass versus bare patches. For example, ARMS Q was placed in a place that was

originally far from seagrass in a bare patch. When we went to recover the ARMS, we found that

ARMS Q was surrounded by seagrass, which may have caused more motile creatures to move

onto ARMS Q. Moreover, during recovery, ARMS Y was so covered in mollusks that we could
not clamp it fully, causing many motile creatures to escape. Had it been clamped properly, there

would most definitely have been a much higher amount of motile creatures found in this ARMS

unit.

As we can see in figure 2, a grand majority of the motile creatures found were in the

seagrass. Since there were 3 ARMS units in seagrass compared to just 2 in bare patches, there

was obviously going to be some difference, at least 60% to 40%, however, the difference we

found is much greater, showing a definite correlation between seagrass and an abundance of

motile creatures. If ARMS Q and ARMS Y been recovered correctly, then there might have been

an even greater difference in the amount of motile creatures found in each of the ARMS units.

In conclusion, our research results show that there are more motile creatures living in

seagrass rather than bare patches. These results could be relevant because it show that global

warming will have a definite effect on the survival of motile creatures that depend on seagrass.

Motile creatures obviously seem to be dependent on seagrass (and its surroundings) based on the

data we collected. With the extinction of seagrass, many motile creatures will have no place to

find shelter, and many species would likely die out.

If we were to do this experiment differently, we would have made sure to place the

ARMS that were supposed to be in bare patches farther away from seagrass, to prevent the

problems we ran into with ARMS Q. We would also have tried to recover ARMS Y better. This

way, our data would likely have been much more conclusive, leading to more accurate results

and eliminating confounding variables we ran into. Since these confounding variables had clear

effects on the outcome of the experiment, we would have tried to take preventative measures, or

at least utilized more ARMS units to try to make less room for doubt.
 Work Cited

Species, By. "Importance of Seagrass." Seagrass Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.

Waters, Hannah. "Seagrass and Seagrass Beds." Ocean Portal. N.p., 30 Aug. 2016. Web. 19 Sept.

2016.

Boness, Laura. "Endangered Seagrasses Can Store Carbon." Science Illustrated. N.p., 21 May

2012. Web. 3 Oct. 2016

Dynamicdrive.com, By. "What Is Seagrass?" Www.SeagrassLI.org Cornell Cooperative

Extension Eelgrass Restoration. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2016.

"Seagrass Ecosystems as a Globally Significant Carbon Stock." Nature Geoscience. N.p., 20

May 2012. Web. 3 Oct. 2016.

List of Figures

1. Figure 1: Number of Motile Creatures per Plate

2. Figure 2: Percentage of Motile Creatures found in Seagrass v. Bare Patch