Maryland Marine Notes: May-August 2000 Sidebar

Volume 18, Numbers 3-4 • May-August 2000

Understanding Grass Habitat

Researchers Michael Kemp and Laura Murray of the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory are closely tracking several types of grass beds in Broad Creek on Maryland's Eastern Shore, exploring how habitat affects the grasses' growth and retention. Along with several graduate and summer students, the scientists take water quality measurements in different bottom areas; one is dense with vegetation, mostly widgeon grass; another is patchy and sparsely vegetated; the third, about a mile away, is mostly bare sediment. In each place, along a transect that goes from the middle of the grass bed to its edge to the open water, they measure the same parameters - nutrient levels, chlorophyll (a stand-in for algal biomass), suspended solids, water clarity - every four hours, at low, flood, high and ebb tide.

The hypothesis is that larger, denser grassbeds will be less susceptible to stress than sparse, patchy beds, and will improve water quality and be better able to sustain themselves. In Broad Creek and related studies in other salinity regimes with different grass species, they and Rick Bartleson, also at the UMCES Horn Point Lab, will be quantifying these relationships. Using these measurements, they will be developing more refined simulation models to assess how different spatial patterns of bay grass abundance influence the effects of plants on water quality. This study could be especially useful for widespread transplanting programs by establishing key criteria that will better promote successful recovery of bottom habitats no longer productive as they once were.

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