Taking the pulse of our marine environment
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Sarasota County’s seagrass beds—vital habitat for many marine animals and indicators of estuary health—declined by 13% from 2018 to 2020, a loss of 763 acres. While the county’s seagrass cover is still 11% above targets designated by the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program (SBEP), it’s important to recognize that seagrass declines can signify decreased water quality.
Mote Marine Laboratory scientists have collected water quality data for Sarasota County since 1998, a valuable resource for understanding and addressing challenges. For example, Mote’s water quality and red tide data contributed to a 2021 report by Janicki Environmental, Inc., and Jones Edmunds, submitted to SBEP to inform future water quality protection and restoration efforts. The report pointed out trends of increasing nitrogen in several of the region’s bays and tributaries to clarify the potential sources and inform future efforts to address them.
While government agencies hold the authority to develop water-quality initiatives, Mote—an independent, nonprofit marine science institution—is dedicated to providing the best possible scientific data to inform decision makers at all levels. In addition to water quality, Mote scientists provided data and expertise on native wildlife to community efforts this year to improve the health and natural beauty of ecosystems in our Sarasota Bay backyard.
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Mote scientists have collected more than a year’s worth of chemical and biological data to help detect any possible benefits of the environmental improvement being done for The Bay park. This new park, currently in development on the Sarasota Bayfront includes features designed to benefit water quality—such as a “denitrification trench” to neutralize excess nitrogen in rainwater before it permeates the ground and ultimately enters Sarasota Bay. Mote’s data will help to reveal the status of nearby water quality, fish and bottom-dwelling animals before and after the improvements.
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At another coastal Sarasota park—Bayfront Park near Marina Jack—Mote scientists have documented that the City of Sarasota’s “living seawall” is attracting marine invertebrate animals—primarily oysters—a sign of its positive impact. Other positive signs: The diversity and abundance of free-swimming animals increased over time, attracting valuable recreational and commercial species such as mangrove snapper, common snook and lane snapper, along with stone crab and pink shrimp. Living seawalls provide nooks and crannies where marine animals can settle and hide, offering more potential habitat than traditional, flat seawalls. Mote scientists have surveyed this seawall repeatedly since it was installed by the City of Sarasota in 2018.
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Mote scientists are working with SBEP to study what types of nutrients are taken up by macroalgae (seaweed) in Sarasota Bay. Mote scientists have been analyzing the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients in algae samples for this project, which is expected to continue for more than a year. One key question: Do the nutrient dynamics in Sarasota Bay affect which types of plants dominate? Water quality issues can open the door for more algae and less seagrass, but seagrass meadows are too valuable to lose, providing habitat for 70% of the recreationally and commercially important species of fish, crabs and shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico region for at least part of their lives.
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Mote’s fisheries scientists were tapped this year to monitor the success of two new habitat restoration projects in Robinson Preserve in Manatee County and Alligator Creek in Sarasota County. Each project draws upon Mote’s fisheries research expertise to gather baseline data on fish communities before and after the restoration efforts, and will also integrate the antenna systems used to monitor Mote’s stock enhancement efforts to evaluate how different species benefit from the restored habitat, so that the most effective habitat design features can be implemented moving forward future improvements can be detected afterward. The Alligator Creek improvement project is overseen by Sarasota County, and Mote is working with contractors at Wood Environment and Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. The Robinson Preserve project involves collaborators from Mote, Manatee County, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Further afield, on Florida’s southeast coast, Mote scientists co-authored a peer-reviewed research paper finding that changes in freshwater flows into Florida Bay appear to be associated with loss of seagrass and the rise of microscopic algae that compete with it. The paper cautions that climate change could bring more severe fluctuations in the amount of freshwater flowing into coastal ocean waters, which could further increase risks of losing seagrass. The paper “Dissolved organic nutrients at the interface of fresh and marine waters: flow regime changes, biogeochemical cascades and picocyanobacterial blooms—the example of Florida Bay, USA,” was published this year in Biogeochemistry with a first author from Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
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14 Department of Defense structures were surveyed during dives by Mote scientists working with the company Versar, Inc., on a project for the U.S. Navy to determine what species live on and around these former communications towers in the Gulf of Mexico. Data from surveys—for example, about whether endangered, threatened, protected or regulated animal species are found on or near the towers—will help the U.S. government make informed decisions about the future of these towers, which are no longer used for their original purpose.