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Gulf Coast Research Lab - Marine Botany |
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Fig 1. Comparison of 1m quadrat % cover of seagrass at the 6 sampling stations between 1998, 1999, and 2006 |
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Chandeleur Islands Seagrasses - |
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SAMPLING METHODS Methods for 1998 and 1999 followed the protocol described in: “Multiscale Assessment of the Population Status of Thalassia testudinum A New Approach to Ecosystem Assessment” (EPA Grant Number: R825145). Turtle-grass indicators were tested at nine sites in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, between the Chandeleur Islands in Mississippi and the Florida Bay at the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula. The field sampling program at all nine sites used three nested grids of tesselated hexagons. This spatially distributed, random sampling design provided the statistical advantages of random sampling and structured spatial coverage of sampling areas. At each of the nine sites, we sampled 30 stations at three spatial scales (small-2,500 m2, medium-25,000 m2, and large-250,000 m2). More details can be found at the EPA NCER website: http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.abstractDetail/abstract/229 |
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RESULTS: |
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Fig1: Maximum height of short shoots at 6 survey sites |
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Fig2: Density of short shoots at 6 survey sites |
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Fig 3: Biomass (g /m2) of 3 seagrass species at the 6 study locations |
