Time to catch up on old posts...

Unfortunately, I've been a little too busy with field work to take the time and post to the blog this summer. Time flies when you are busy. Over the coming weeks, when weather keeps us in the office and as time allows, I want to provide updates on various projects we have underway. We have had some exciting results this year and we look forward to the fall planting season.

Restoration is underway at several sites in Long Island sound, Peconic Estuary and in the South Shore Estuary Reserve. Plantings range in size from small-scale test plots to large scale multiple acre sites.

Monitoring is underway in all estuaries especially in the PE with increased attention focusing on light and temperature measurements in existing eelgrass, historic eelgrass and potential restoration sites. Another large project is underway in cooperation with Fred Short at UNH involving collection of plant samples for genetic analysis. Expect more specific updates soon...

-ChrisP

So much field work...so little time!

After what was a pretty slow May marred by weather related delays, we hit the water hard in mid June and basically haven't stopped since. Sure there's been the necessary office work, but the pace has been nearly frantic throughout the summer.

We have been busy planting out new test plots in LIS, PE and the SSER in preparation for the coming restoration season. Our monitoring work has followed the progress of these new plantings every other week and we have also made time to go out and check on our plantings from previous years to see how they are faring.

This summer we are also testing out one TWO new planting methods, one in Shinnecock Bay and PE and the other in LIS and PE. Both could open up new restoration opportunities for us in these areas and may help to reduce restoration costs and labor.

Our monitoring results have been VERY encouraging and generally fall into what we have come to expect for the region. LIS sites, both old and new have met or exceeded our expectations. The same can be said for Shinnecock bay plantings. PE, on the the other hand, continues to disappoint, at least in some areas. A new site off Plum Island, however, may be the one we've been waiting for. If this site proves successful, it could be on a scale unheard of in the PE. So far so good!

Look for detailed posts on each of these projects as time permits in the coming weeks.

For now we have to take advantage of the very cooperative weather and continue with field work!

-ChrisP

Planting in the Hamptons...

Yesterday we spent the day in Shinnecock Bay reconing for a large-scale Buoy Deployed Seeding effort we have planned with the Southampton Town Trustees. The forecast called for a passing shower and we were lucky enough drive through it on our way from Southold to Southampton. Once we got the the ramp at Ponquogue Bridge it was only sprinkling and by the time we got in the water the rain had stopped. The sun didn't come out, but at least it wasn't raining...

Our first stop was a site in Tiana Bay to collect a new sediment sample to round out our sediment data for the Eelgrass and Bay Scallop Project funded by the NYSDOS. The previous sample collected last year had some "issues" so we just needed to retake the sample so the analysis could be re-run. While at the site we were pleased to see a very interesting and patchy meadow, growing in mud, with flowers reaching to the surface. Although we didn't have time to investigate in more detail yesterday, we will have to go back and observe this site in more detail as it is different from other SSER meadows we are aware of.

The two goals of our trip were to: 1) locate and characterize an appropriate multi-acre planting site, and 2) to identify a seed donor site and collect samples to determine potential seed yield and timing of seed collection.

After finishing in Tiana, we headed back east under the bridge and anchored in the flats just beyond the inlet and north of the barrier beach. At a meeting a couple weeks ago with the Trustees it was decided that we would focus on a very large flat south of some of the existing grass in the bay in an area that was not used for shellfishing. Once we got out there we realized that this site just happens to be in front of the largest home on the barrier beach so it will be relatively easy to find the future.

Once at the proposed site we started by setting small buoys to generally define the planting area. With these in place, we set out to characterize the site in more detail so that we could base our final decision on the existing conditions. While Kim and Ali collected sediment samples and photographed the bottom, Steve and I walked the perimeter of the area and recorded depth, time and GPS coordinates to characterize depths. With regard to depth, we need to make sure that the site is deep enough to support or buoys. In addition, we also need to determine our BuDS line lengths based on this depth.

In order to find a suitable seed donor site, Kim and Ali observed the natural meadows north of the flats in 7-9 feet of water and at another site near the Coast Guard Station in 7 feet of water. At each site they collected at least 10 reproductive shoots so that spathes, and seeds could be counted. Given that it has been cold this year, the flowers were in early stages of development and we observed stigmas emerging and some pollen being released. This gives us approximately 4 weeks until the first seed release depending on how our water temperatures progress this month.

Once Steve gets the GPS coordinates on an appropriate aerial photo I will be able to present the map to the Trustees for final approval. When this is complete, we hope to mark the site with larger buoys or sapling "whips" so that it will be easily identified in the future. Kim will also be observing the flowers she collected to determine the potential seed yield and give us an idea of the optimal collection window. At this point we are looking at the last week in June as a potential collection/deployment time.

- ChrisP

BuDS goes National!

A new planting system we devised and first tested in Sag Harbor Cove in 2000 has been adopted by managers in San Francisco Bay to help to restore grass there.....see this link to the story.

In 2002, I was invited to a workshop designed to discuss various alternatives for replanting grass in the intertidal flats in the Bay. Subsequent to this, a NOAA-funded study was undertaken to test three methods of planting eelgrass including a modified TERFS transplant method, broadcast seeding and our Buoy Deployed Seeding. We were very happy to learn that the BuDS had the best results and has since been the method of choice for San Fran managers. Apparently, they have been able to establish acres of grass using this method. See the NOAA story for details and check out the close-up photo (below) of an intertidal flat taken by Dr. Mark Fonseca of NOAA.

The State of Maryland also has some considerable success with BuDS and considered it the most economical method they ever tested. I'm not sure if they are still using it, but it is nice to know that this system has worked elsewhere. Initial trials in Portugal were inconclusive, but I hope that they also adopt our system.

With all the success of this method you would think that we would have lots of sites to point to here on Long Island, but, unfortunately, we don't. This system is best suited to shallow sandy flats that can be found in San Francisco and the Maryland Coastal Bays system. The only areas we have like that around here are in the South Shore Estuary Reserve. We did run a trial on TNC's Blue Points property a couple years ago, but the arrival of the brown tide last year all but doomed that effort.

In a new effort, we are about to embark on a large-scale eelgrass planting project using BuDS in Shinnecock Bay. This project, with funding from Suffolk County and the cooperation and support of the Southampton Town Trustees, will be our largest BuDS deployment ever and has a high likelyhood of successful if our initial transplant tests are any indication. This project follows the successful completion of a New York State Department of State funded Eelgrass and bay scallop restoration planning effort for Shinnecock and Moriches Bays. (I will have an entire post once the final report and GIS model is released next month).

In the coming days we will be spending time out on the flats scouting and marking the most suitable areas. A meeting with the Trustees has indicated that there is one large area that will likely be ideal.

In a future post I will report back on the progress of this work.

-- ChrisP

The Fall season is in full swing…

Although most people assume that our busiest season is summer they couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re out in the boat a lot during the summer given the great weather, but fall is when most of the real important work takes place. Unfortunately, fickle weather patterns including heavy winds from the northwest keep us in the office more than we would like during this time of year. As a result, we have more work to do than days to do it in and we must take advantage of every field day possible. It is not unusual for me to hold off scheduling meetings until I look at the weather forecast for the week.

Although the fall brings us cold air temps the water takes some time to drop. This change is really tied into colder nights that inch the mercury downward day by day. The opposite is true in the spring when the air gets warmer faster than the water. It’s that whole heat capacity thing that I don’t want to get into now…

One big advantage of working in the fall is that the water clarity (vis) really improves. The algae all seem to take a break for the season and do not bloom. This is less than ideal for our filter feeders like shellfish and perfect for those of us who want to see past our noses while diving. This added light is also critical for the grass as we observe a nice little growth spurt in fall as lateral shoots emerge.

During fall we complete our monitoring for the various test planting sites and we summarize the results of our large-scale restoration projects. If the planting has suffered losses over summer we sometimes observe slight increases in shoot density by November or December. It’s not that the shoots get any larger, actually they get smaller, but what we want to see is more of them. For the some projects we may even replant.

Another advantage of the colder temps is that the crabs slow a little and tend to cause less damage to our plots. Unfortunately, most of the damage has already taken place during the summer, but this is helps to protect our new plantings. This is especially true in January, but this frigid water even slows us down!

This year, we don’t have an overly eventful fall. We just have a few projects to complete before January. Planting sites include Caumsett State Park in Long Island Sound (LIS), Great Gull Island (LIS), Jamaica Bay, NYC and several areas along the north fork. I always like to add at least a couple new test plots and we are still figuring out which ones we will use this year.

Soon we will be breaking out our dry suits. For now I can still dive wet…

-ChrisP

Seed collection season is over!

This past week we completed what will likely be one of our most productive seed collection seasons to date. Our seed work varies greatly from year to year depending on our needs for restoration and level of effort. Well, kind of like buying a lottery ticket in the hopes of winning it big, we jumped in head first this year.

As anyone in the field of eelgrass restoration knows, seeds are the way to go, IF you can get them to work for you. That is a big “IF”… Some sites work very well while others fail dismally. It is not that uncommon to get good seedling recruitment and I like to say that anyone can do this. Long-term survival is the hard part. In our area it seems like most seedlings die before they reach maturity unless they are growing near established plants.

For this reason seeds can be used to increase the genetic diversity within transplanted sites. This season many of the seeds will be used for fall broadcasting into ongoing restoration sites where we want to increase shoot density and genetic diversity. For something different a large portion will be held for growout into adult shoots that can be used in spring transplant efforts.

Our seed collection season begins some time in Late June to early July in parts of the South Shore Bays (e.g., Shinnecock Bay) and Bullhead Bay in the Peconic Estuary (if we collect there which we didn’t this year). There is then a little lull until late July as the plants in western Gardiners Bay mature.

Following this there is a large collection window beginning in early August for our Long Island Sound and Fishers Island sites. Given the density and size of the flowers off Fishers, we concentrated much of our work here this year.

I’m not sure if this year was a banner year or if we just hadn’t noticed how productive Fishers Island was. Our collection site is located just south of South Dumpling Island west of Flat Hammock. Here, most flowers are over 7 feet tall and a handful will fill ¼ of one of our bags. We were actually able to fill a bag in less than 10 minutes! If we tried hard it could be done in 5 minutes…

This may not sound too impressive unless you compare it to one of our sites with smaller, widely spaced flowers where it can take 1 hour to fill a bag.

Our collections were so extensive this year we had to borrow some tank space in the Shellfish Hatchery (Thanks Mikey!) as well as set up an outdoor tank next to our greenhouse. In the coming weeks the seeds will be separated from the flowering shoots and we will be left with what we hope is a large amount of seeds.

I look forward to broadcasting these in the hopes of adding to our restoration work.

-ChrisP

The Starfish Hoard…

I just wanted to pass along a couple cool pics of baby starfish in an eelgrass meadow north of Warner Island in Shinnecock Bay. We were out today to look for a temperature logger that we lost last year. Actually we didn’t lose it, but the story is too long to explain here.

Anyway, we still couldn’t find it even after using two GPS units and divers.

Back to the starfish…this is the same spot where we got some great shots of even smaller starfish a couple years ago. One of those pics was used in our newsletter under the title “A Star is Born”. See that issue here. Then and now it looks as if the starfish are wandering up on the blades of eelgrass to eat of the small blue mussels that have set there.

Definitely not one of my favorites, but yet another species that utilizes eelgrass!

-ChrisP

HAB’s hit the area HARD…

This spring has brought unwelcome visitors to the area. Harmful Algae Blooms! Our old friend and archenemy of eelgrass and shellfish, the “Brown Tide” (Aureococcus anophagefferens), has hit Great South Bay hard and is creeping east at an alarming rate. Another species, nicknamed the “Mahogany Tide” (Prorocentrum minimum) (see photos) has also been sighted in local waters. First time I’ve heard of that one. What is happening?

Fortunately we are in capable hands as Robert “Mac” Waters, Supervisor for the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, Bureau of Marine Resources has been sending out almost daily email alerts detailing the geographic spread and intensity of the bloom as his team tracks the invasion.

This has already caused the cancellation of a long overdue NYSDOS-sponsored aerial mapping effort for eelgrass in the SSER where you can’t see the bottom and the Peconics for logistical reasons. In addition, we had planned to follow up on a seeding project we conducted at the Blue Points Property owned by TNC, but this was also scrubbed given the nonexistent vis.

My main concern at this time is two-fold. First, how far into Shinnecock Bay will the BT spread? We have plans to work in western parts of the bay this year, but that will likely be on hold for now. What about the eastern half though? Will it move east of the canal? Also, if it does move into the eastern part of the bay will it pass north through the Shinnecock Canal and into the Peconic Estuary? That would really be a bummer…our Red Cedar Bluff site, that is doing so well, is very close to the canal.

At this point all we can do is sit back and let the SCDHS do their job. Every day we watch the numbers come in like some defeated general getting casualty reports from the field. Hopefully, this will end some time soon. If not, we could lose even more eelgrass.

I’m just glad that BT doesn’t bloom in Long Island Sound….yet!

PHOTOS TAKEN BY PHIL DeBLASI, SCDHS

-ChrisP

Eyes in the sky...

It is not that often that you get a chance to do research from a helicopter. So, when I got the call that a local businessman offered to donate a nice block of flight hours in his new turbine-powered helicopter and personally fly us around the East End to do some seagrass survey work, you didn’t have to ask me twice. My answer was “Great, when can we start!” Luckily, the reply was “What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”

The effort has been tentatively called “Flying LEAP” for the Long-island Eelgrass Assessment Program…our businessman-pilot is used to dealing with the military, so a catchy acronym is a must.

Although everyone knows that aerial surveys are THE way to go when trying to map and run trends analysis data for eelgrass meadows the lack of public dollars and bureaucratic momentum means that this is often not possible. In this day of satellite imagery and every other new fangled means of remote sensing you would think it could be done form our desk. Maybe it can if you are with the US Defense Department but for us lowly civilians it’s just not going to happen.

Take the Peconic Estuary as an example. We were involved with a fixed wing aerial survey and ground truthing effort dating back to 2001. This was the first and last time this was done for the region; pitiful, but true. Now Google Earth and Microsoft Live Search Maps make things a little easier, but there is only so much you can do with existing photo sets which were clearly not acquired for the purposes of mapping seagrasses. I’m not complaining mind you, just stating a fact.

If we could go where we want, when we want (times of good water clarity, low tide, low wind and low sun angle) then we can really capture some great images. This is where our friend and his helicopter come in…

Over the last couple weeks we have been running flights over various parts of the Island, photographing existing meadows, current restoration sites and scouting for new restoration sites. We typically run with three cameras, one video and two still in most cases, to catch all the action. Through this effort we have found entirely new areas of grass that were unknown to us as well as gotten a “bird’s eye view” of our restoration sites around the Island. There is no substitute for seeing the grass from above with your own eyes.

Our flights over Shinnecock and Moriches Bays were especially productive as we had an absolutely PERFECT day with a low tide, no wind and great water clarity. It seemed like we could almost see fish in the grass. We are excited to follow up on these observations and get out in a boat and visit some of these interesting areas.

It is hoped that we can continue this work into the summer and fall, especially when the water is clear. We have already learned so much and would like to continue…plus, it beats any day in the office!

Thanks again, friend, and fly safe!

-ChrisP