Smith, Timothy, York, Paul H., Furness, Evelyn, Reason, Carissa, Scott, Abbi, and Rasheed, Michael (2025) Tropical seagrass restoration: novel approaches for challenging environments. In: AMSA 2025: Delegate Handbook. 45. p. 57. From: AMSA 2025: Harmony in Marine Science, 13-17 July 2025, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

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Abstract

Seagrass meadows are prominent coastal and estuarine habitats that provide essential ecosystem services worldwide. The proximity of nearshore seagrass meadows to terrestrial inputs, coastal development, and their sensitivities to light and eutrophication make seagrass susceptible to significant losses. Once lost, seagrass recovery is often slow (> 10 years) or, in extreme cases may not occur at all leading to hysteresis. Seagrass restoration is becoming an increasingly effective tool to remediate such losses and accelerate seagrass recovery. In temperate waters seagrass restoration is becoming increasing effective and widespread. In tropical systems however, seagrass restoration is in its infancy, due to a range of factors including poor knowledge of seagrass life history and distribution, extreme weather events (floods, cyclones and heatwaves), and restricted site access for safety (e.g. crocodiles, stingers) and logistical (isolation, muddy sediment) reasons. These challenges are being met by developing species specific and location-based approaches to tropical seagrass restoration. These include optimizing individual anchors for surface fragment deployment, boat-based seagrass collection and dispersal, nursery development and remote monitoring. We present examples of approaches that are leading to safe, effective seagrass restoration strategies in tropical Australia and highlight successes, challenges and pathways to broad adoption and scaling up.

Item ID:	86547
Item Type:	Conference Item (Abstract / Summary)
Related URLs:	https://www.amsa2025.amsa.asn.au/
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2025 01:54
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3108 Plant biology > 310804 Plant developmental and reproductive biology @ 33% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 33% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4102 Ecological applications > 410203 Ecosystem function @ 34%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1802 Coastal and estuarine systems and management > 180206 Rehabilitation or conservation of coastal or estuarine environments @ 100%
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