Gulf Coast Research Lab - Marine Botany

Fig 1. Comparison of 1m quadrat % cover of seagrass at the 6 sampling stations between 1998 and 1999. No seagrass was found at station LO4.

Chandeleur Islands Seagrass Monitoring
August 1998/1999 Assessments

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 Louisiana 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

RESULTS:

Fig 2. Comparison of 1m quadrat shoot density of seagrass at the 6 sampling stations between 1998 and 1999. No seagrass was found at station LO4.

Fig 3. Comparison of 1m quadrat canopy height of seagrass at the 6 sampling stations between 1998 and 1999. No seagrass was found at station LO4.

Fig 4. Comparison of 1m quadrat above-ground biomass of seagrass at the 6 sampling stations between 1998 and 1999. No seagrass was found at station LO4.

Dr. Patrick Biber

Associate Professor, Coastal Sciences

Gulf Coast Research Laboratory

703 East Beach Drive

Ocean Springs, MS 39564

United States

Phone: 228 872 4200

Fax: 228 872 4204

E-mail: patrick.biber@usm.edu

Webpage:
http://www.usm.edu/gcrl/cv/biber.patrick/cv.biber.patrick.php

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