MarineFisheries Hub3 eelgrass restoration mid-project progress report, June 2013

MarineFisheries Seagrass staff recently completed a mid-project status report detailing the background, methods, preliminary results and discussion of our eelgrass planting project in Salem Sound and Boston Harbor, funded as partial mitigation for the Hubline Pipeline impacts to eelgrass. 

You can read the full report on the Fisheries Habitat Program page of the MarineFisheries website.  Click the link below to get there directly.

Hub 3 mid-project report 2010-2012

Not balloons, Man-o-war in Buzzards Bay

Man-of-wars are found, sometimes in groups of 1,000 or more, floating in warm waters throughout the world's oceans. They have no independent means of propulsion and either drift on the currents or catch the wind with their pneumatophores. To avoid threats on the surface, they can deflate their air bags and briefly submerge. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/portuguese-man-of-war/.

I guess they got trapped in currents and debris pushed north due to early effects of Tropical Storm Andrea.

We saw lots of Man-o-War washed up along the shore of Buzzards Bay yesterday from Chapoquoit to Woods Hole.  This one isn't the best one but I had to run back and get my camera and then this is the only one I could fine.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130706/NEWS/307060324/-1/rss02

Spring recap

Jill Carr measuring canopy height at a Nahant reference bed.

Despite all the bad weather that we've had, it was a very busy and productive spring for the MarineFisheries HUB3 eelgrass restoration project.  Our work has shifted from Salem Sound to Boston Harbor, and the spring was spent planting and monitoring at six sites that were selected last fall.  The sites that were selected for restoration are Green Island, Great Brewster Island, Gallops Island, Long Island, Governors Island Flats, and Deer Island Flats.  All of our harvesting for the Boston Harbor restoration will take place in expansive natural eelgrass beds near Nahant.  We also began monitoring at three reference beds; two near Nahant and one east of Logan Airport.  As noted in a May post, during our initial assessment of the reference beds and harvest sites, it appeared that some of the natural beds had suffered some damage from winter storms that battered the area.  While we don’t have enough data to say for sure, the beds do seem to be rebounding as seedlings are growing and filling in some of the bare areas.    

Boston Harbor restoration, reference, and harvest sites.

The Boston Harbor sites are set up in a similar layout to our six plots per ¼ acre sites in Salem Sound.  The plots that were planted this spring will act as test plots and five additional plots will be added to the sites that are deemed successful based on the initial plots.  Our goal is to get at least 1 acre planted in Boston Harbor.  We are planning to use volunteers for large scale planting days again as last year’s volunteer days with Salem Sound Coastwatch and The New England Aquarium’s Live Blue Ambassadors program were a huge success.

Earlier in the spring, we looked at two of our restoration sites that were planted last year in Salem Sound.  Both the Woodbury Point site and the Middle Ground site survived the winter and appeared to be expanding.  A full monitoring event is planned for all of the Salem Sound sites in late July so that we can determine the actual one year success of those sites.

We are all keeping our fingers crossed for the weather to begin to improve.  We have a lot of work to do throughout the summer, so stay tuned for further updates.

Creepy oyster toadfish lurking beneath the moorings in West Falmouth Harbor.  Looks like he could use some chapstick.

Declining density and extent of eelgrass at Salem Sound and Nahant could be due to storm damage

Hi! Back in the water again after a long winter in the office...

Nahant

So far we have been to the Nahant meadow twice this spring.  The first time in April we came to retrieve a hobo temp/light monitor and harvest for plantings in Boston Harbor outer islands. Notes from August 2012 at that site indicate that plants were tall and lush, 75% cover and approximately 80shts/m2 with many reproductive shoots.  The meadow was continuous with few open patches.  But in April, we observed a low density patchy bed with large eroded areas and other areas of deep sand waves.  Our screw anchor, installed back at the end of August 2012, was buried up to the eye. 

We were back at the Nahant eelgrass meadow last week looking for a site to establish a monitoring station.  We ran a drop camera along several transects spaced throughout the DEP mapped area.  We were surprised and disappointed to find a large portion of the area mapped by DEP in 2006 is now gone and the remaining grass is mostly patchy, similar to what we saw in April.  The southeast lobe of the bed persists, but has contracted from it's 2006 extent.  Check out the rough map below digitized from our field notes, showing the remaining meadow, and an area of patchy grass and other sections of the bed that are now only sand waves.

We plan to return with divers for a closer look to help determine what might have occurred.  From the camera view it appeared that sand waves had swept over the bed, possibly burying the grass.  This meadow has long been a lush dense meadow and one of the few remaining north of Boston of this size (in MA).  Many groups have used this bed as a reference bed and donor bed for eelgrass projects in Boston.  The green dots on the map above show the locations where we are investigating possible establishment of a new SeagrassNet, long term monitoring station.

Salem Sound

At our SeagrassNet site in Salem Sound (Misery Island, Beverly) we also found low density and evidence of erosion.  It looked like much of the sand had been washed away leaving a hard-packed clay.  There is still grass clinging to the clay, so hopefully as the season progresses it will fill back in.  I think we are seeing the effects of a late winter with several storms, including NEMO in February 2013.

Sand eroded away leaving hard-packed clay over much of the shallow side (transect A) of the meadow

SeagrassNet quadrat showing low density eelgrass and eroded areas of clay

erosion around a small eelgrass clump near transect A

Taking a biomass sample on Transect B

Mooring video, Salem Sound Under Water lecture series and more!

Greetings from the MarineFisheries eelgrass team!  Like many of you, much of our winter work involves crunching data from the previous field season and disseminating our findings in reports and public presentations. I recently gave a presentation as part of the “ Salem Sound Underwater” lecture series hosted by Salem Sound Coastwatch (http://www.salemsound.org/) The talk focused on eelgrass, why it is important and what we are doing to map, monitor and restore it to our coast. 

 The next presentation in the series will be "Saltmarshes Under Siege" by Robert Buchsbaum of the Mass Audubon Society,  March 27th, 7pm at the Marblehead Abbot Public Library.

We are always trying to find new ways to engage the public through presentations, pictures and videos.  Recently, we edited some of our field work videos to turn them into educational tools.  One example is our video of a dive on a traditional, block and chain, boat mooring. The footage, captured in July 2011, demonstrates divers monitoring a boat mooring located within a mooring field that overlaps an eelgrass meadow in Manchester-by-the-Sea. The chain from the traditional mooring system drags along the bottom, scouring the seafloor as it sweeps in and out with the waves. This was not a very windy day, but look at that chain bounce!

The Manchester mooring project was part of a collaboration with the Mass Bays Program and was funded by the Association of National Estuary Programs with a NOAA Community Based Restoration Partnership Grant.  The primary objective of the project was to restore eelgrass to denuded areas around traditional block and chain mooring systems.  Sixteen block and chain moorings were replaced with conservation mooring systems in existing eelgrass beds: eight in Manchester and eight in Provincetown.  Following replacement of the moorings, eelgrass was transplanted into a subset of the scars to determine if transplanting would facilitate the recovery of eelgrass.  Monitoring has been performed annually and is still underway.  For more information, refer to the project poster here: http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dmf/programsandprojects/neers_mooring_poster.pdf

Looking forward to Spring and our upcoming field season!

- Tay Evans, MarineFisheries biologist

January Field Work

Frozen Lanes Cove, Gloucester, MA.

Field work in January is far from routine in New England.  With temperatures ranging from 1°F on January 24^th to 62°F on January 31^st and winds gusting most days to 25 knots, it’s tough to schedule time on the water.  It always seems that the coldest days are the calmest and the warmer days are riddled with fog and wind.  The extreme temperature swings, snowstorms, downpours, and 60 knot gusts make January an ideal time   to snuggle up to a cup of tea   and start planning for spring fieldwork. 

Eelgrass in January.

But, on January 16^th, DMF divers managed to sneak in one day in the field to complete a portion of the quarterly SeagrassNet monitoring.  The day started out snowing heavily with zero visibility.  The forecast called for the snow to end early and there was no wind, making for calm seas for the short steam from Gloucester Harbor to Salem Sound.  Upon arrival to the SeagrassNet site, the snow began to let up as forecasted and the divers were ready to go.  The first team in the water managed to complete an entire transect.  The 40°F water was a welcome change from the 30°F air even though that still makes for numb fingers that don’t function well with a pencil in hand. 

Ross is excited for our steam back to the dock 

in the heated wheelhouse of the R/V Alosa.

The eelgrass at the SeagrassNet site looked healthy.  As is typical in the winter, the density had decreased and shoots were small and brilliant green.  With an average of 111 shoots / m², a mean percent cover of approximately 20%, and an average shoot height of 37 cm, the meadow is seasonally at a lower density compared to the 75% - 90% cover typically found in July. 

The next quarterly monitoring in April will kick off a busy spring and summer.  In the meantime, the DMF eelgrass team will be hard at work the rest of the winter planning for another season of eelgrass restoration, monitoring, and mapping.