EC #18-B: Thick Hot Eelgrass Shellfish and Bacteria, Friend or Foe?

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EC #18-B:  Thick Hot Eelgrass Shellfish and Bacteria, Friend or Foe?
A Century of Habitat Change and Public Policy Around Submerged
Vegetation and Bacteria
Tim Visel – The Sound School
New Haven, CT
June 2020
View all Nitrogen/Bacteria Posts on The Blue Crab Forum™.  This is the
second part of the two series.  Viewpoint of Tim Visel no other agency
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Newsletter series – over 250,000 views
This is a delayed report

Readers of this newsletter should review 18-A posted on October 20, 2020. 

A note from Tim Visel – A Lack of Fisheries History Complicates Estuarine Policy

Since the 1920's the end of an extremely hot period in New England there has been few fishery historians. Changes in federal organizations and their mission statements did not help either.  The records of the US Fish Commission (1881) were transferred to the Dept. of Commerce in 1912.  The function and mission would be changed again in 1938 as these fishery programs now were placed under the US Dept. of Interior – US Fish and Wildlife Service within the Bureaus of Commercial and Recreational Fisheries.  In a reorganization that occurred in 1970 the US Fish and Wildlife functions of many hatcheries and research laboratories were again to be housed in the Dept of Commerce in a new National Marine Fisheries Service today known as "NMFS."  In these transfers many historical research manuscripts were placed on the "back shelf" and some no doubt tossed.  This is known as the grey literature.  These manuscripts never published most likely contained significant climate/habitat observations.  Inshore fisheries a century ago were important to coastal economies.

The movement and mission changes did not reflect a historical context, many of the present day conversations about organic matter, nitrogen pathways and temperature impacts upon marine plants such as eelgrass were similar to those of the 1920's.  The heat then had created a bacteria battle most noticed as the rise of a organic matter ooze (sapropel) in the shallows gathered by eelgrass.  Shellfish researchers a century ago noted this bacterial battle in the soils of shallow bays and coves on both sides of the Atlantic.  Researchers then also noticed that eelgrass now held organic matter in greater amounts.  Jensen (1921-1922) and Blevard (1914) and Mitchell (1917) all wrote about eelgrass and nitrogen.  Other researchers reported that eelgrass not only produced organic matter but also held it for bacteria to consume in a marine compost.  From US Fish Commission Bulletin 38 pg 212.  The Biology and Economic Value of the Sea Mussel (1922) is found this section,

"That nitrogenous matter of the bottom can also be increased by the fixation of in organic nitrogen through the action of bacteria, is likewise probable.  The nitrogen may be taken from the ammonia or nitrate dissolved in the water or from the free nitrogen which is also present in solution.  Bacteria such as anotobacteria and clostridium which perform this function, are of command occurrence on the bottom and a considerable amount of nitrogen fixation has been shown to take place where the vegetation is abundant.  In addition to the above sources of nitrogen it should be mentioned that the fauna itself, by dying and forming detritus, also serves to increase the amount of nitrogen in the sea floor" and further – (Jensen 1914) noted -

"In the more sheltered waters the organic matter of the sea bottom is observed of most exclusively from Zostera (eelgrass).  In the more upon waters it is possible that the plankton organisms may play a not altogether important part as a source of the organic matter of the bottom."

This was controversial in the 1920's as the source of nitrogen in coastal regions and open oceans.  Irving A. Field, late Professor of Biology at Clark University and Special Investigator US Bureau of Fisheries US Fisheries Biological Station, Wood Hole, Massachusetts (Vol 38 pg. 222).  In a section titled Uses and Commercial Value of Sea Mussels (1922) includes a description of sapropel described many times in the historical fisheries literature as a blue/black ill smelling matter but rich in nitrogen and organic matter below mussel beds.

"Where the beds are exposed to the deposition of silt the mussels are gradually smothered to death.  While new generations are constantly becoming attached to the layers above.  The result after a number of years is a thick layer of blue, ill smelling matter called mussel mud which is rich in lime, sulphur, and nitrogen.  It is considered one of the best fertilizers known, especially for carrots and onions.  A writer from Essex County Mass (Ingersoll 1884, pg 621) stated that for 30 years he had seen it applied to lands where onions had been grown with a yield varying from 300 to 600 bushels per acre.  The material is usually gathered during the winter, allowed to freeze, and is then distributed in amounts which very from 4 to 8 cords per acre."

But it was the EPA itself that identified sapropel (harbor or marine mud) as a source of interstitial pore nitrogen, the nitrogen that was present in dredged material samples as ammonia.  Dredge samples sent for toxicological examinations had so much ammonia (highly toxic to marine organisms) in them that samples had to be rinsed first of ammonia before tests could start.  (See EPA 600 R-94-025 June 1994 Methods for Assessing The Toxicity of Sediment – Associated Contaminants with Estuarine and Marine Amphipods) – errata page Effects of Sediment – Associated Ammonia" errata for pages 80-82

"For dredged material testing the following procedure should be used if it is necessary to reduce interstitial water ammonia levels.  Whenever chemical evidence of ammonia is present at toxicologically important levels and ammonia is not a contaminant of concern, the laboratory analyst should reduce ammonia in the sediment, interstitial water to species – specific no effect concentrations.  Ammonia levels in the interstitial water can be reduced by sufficiently aerating the sample and replacing two volumes of water per day."

The farm community had long known that sealed wet marine composts leaked ammonia.  Samples of harbor mud examined by the Maine Agriculture Experiment Station has this comment in 1885, "This station (Maine Experiment Station – T. Visel) was sent a sample by Fred Atwood of Winterport (Maine) the barrel of mud was received weeks before being sampled and when it was opened it emitted a strong odor of "ammonia."

They also knew about the use of harbor mud could surge acids as few reports do not mention also the need of calcium to offset sulfuric acid – mostly oyster, clam, and mussel shells – but even lobster shells were used to offset acidity in the Northern Maritimes.  This is a section from Fish and Men In The Maine Islands" by W. H. Bishop – 1880 and reprinted from Harper's New Monthly Magazine and reprinted by Berliawsky – Books, Camden Maine.

"He put on his lands (farm fields – T. Visel) a top dressing of the refuse from the lobster factories, and also flats mud, which he found excellent." 

The Maine Experiment Station would continue to sample marine or harbor mud for decades and was considered a valuable fertilizer in the 1900's (see The Farmers Advocate pg 171 – P.E.I. seed grain mussel/mud and dairying April 29, 1909) and the problem of applying too much (suspected of acidity – T. Visel) from pg 171 – The Farmers Advocate (1909).

"Spring is almost upon us, are we ready for it?  The winter had slipped pleasantly by – no storms of any account, and good roads and good hauling all winter and in consequence, this has been probably the best winter for digging and hauling the valuable fertilizer, mussel mud that we have had for many years.  There seems to be an endless supply of this mud still in our bays and rivers good as this article is, some farms have been almost ruined with it by putting on too much to the acre, or by the second or third application to the same land.  Twelve to 15 one horse loads is sufficient for an acre of land and that will do, as far as we know for all time."

One horse cart load – is 3,000 lbs or about 30 bushels (about) at 100 lbs/bushel. The habitat history of eelgrass habitats should contain a review (at the very least) of the soil conditions that made them possible. My view, Tim Visel. I respond to all emails at [email protected].


The Habitat History of Marine Grasses
   
The habitat history of eelgrass may provide significant clues to the increase of bacterial growths in very hot seawater conditions.  The number and diversity of bacteria strains increase as eelgrass peat succession proceeds is not unlike bacterial growths beneath terrestrial grasses.  One of the first soil researchers to document the increase of bacteria beneath terrestrial grasses was Holmer J. Wheeler, who in 1912 was president of the University of Rhode Island, then known as the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (His textbook "Manures and Fertilizers: A Textbook for College Students" first published in 1913 and was recently republished in 2015).  This was a process termed bacterial inoculation – the harvest of dense bacterial cultures below terrestrial grasses for use in soil that had little bacteria or those without grasses.  It was also the start of planting cover crops to prevent the loss of bacteria (nitrogen) by erosion.

By the time eelgrass started to die off in the 1930's, soil scientists had written about and reported on bacterial growths below grasses.  In fact, it was Dr. Wheeler, who in 1904, gave a lecture on acid soils and provides evidence of the "poisonous action of the sulphate of ammonia in acid soils" (Syllabus of Illustrated Lectures on Acid Soils).  However, this research (or any soil science research that I have found) was not included in recent eelgrass studies, the soil in which the eelgrass grew.  Eelgrass holds marine soils and then gathers organic matter, in the same way both land and sea.  Dr. Wheeler documented a century ago for terrestrial grasses, however, bacteria increased under eelgrass as well.  In heat, these grasses are the first ones to generate sulfides.  Researchers have already linked specific habitat features to the sulfur cycle and sulfate toxicity, (Effects of Zostera Marina Roots and Leaf Detritus on the Concentration and Distribution of Pore – Water Sulfide in Marine Sediments – Alexandra Simpson, 2016) but now continue to research the bacterial species of vibrio – (draft Genome Sequences of Two Vibrio Splendidus Strains, Isolated from Sea Grass Sediment, Lee et al., 2016) or even culture the pathogenic vibrio species (Chase et al., Sediment and Vegetation as Reservoirs of Vibrio Vulnificus in the Tampa Bay Estuary and Gulf of Mexico 2015).  Vibrio has hit blue crabbers who fish in shallow waters that often contain marine grasses.

In cold temperatures sufficient oxygen allows eelgrass to oxidize a "bacterial shield" protecting roots from sulfides when oxygen is limiting as sulfide becomes a plant toxin – casting the cycles of eelgrass into the realm of heat, detrital remains and sulfate reduction.  It is natural that under specific climate conditions a cycle of eelgrass occurs – bounded by soil chemistry and soil science, not so much human involvement.  After a period of intense heat and few strong storms, 1880 to 1920, eelgrass began to die off.  Some reports mention this happened in the teens and by the 1920's, European coasts of England, France and Spain reported eelgrass declines.  This alludes to a system wide cycle.  United States' efforts to investigate the decline were then led by Clarence Cottam of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife a part of the Department of the Interior.  The Dept of Interior had authority over migratory waterfowl and the loss of eelgrass was then a forage species for Brant, a duck hunters favorite.

His lifelong interest in bird life was to bring duck hunters' concerns about a drop in bag catches of Brant, a popular shore waterfowl species, which led to the first press releases about the eelgrass dieoff in 1935 "The Present Situation Regarding Eelgrass," which details that eelgrass was dying off in the upper reaches of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland in 1933, and these shallow areas are more susceptible to heat and sapropel buildups.  Since the shallow waters can warm and typically have less energy, soil chemistry in the shallows would change here first.  Duck hunters documented the loss of eelgrass as Brant starved by the thousands.

It happened again 50 years later that eelgrass died off along the western Atlantic in the 1980's in the shallows first the impact of sulfate metabolism by bacteria.  We have another similar case history with forest die offs.  Beginning in 1971 German Forests exhibited reduced rigor, tree, leaves dropped, canopies died back, turned yellow or browned.  In other word the "forest health" was seen to decline, and this decline was observed in several species, not just one or two.  It would be known as the Waldsterben crisis.  This situation was soon linked to human pollution especially the discharge of factory sulfur dioxide smoke.  In just a few years a regional panic set in, which was involve Universities, non- government organizations, government agencies and concerned civic groups.  As years went by the most mentioned cause was high heat and a dramatic change in soil chemistry – a drought.  The trees (forests) did suffer a dieback then but no other less damaging worldwide and connected to long term climate patterns.  Much has been written about the public panic and German media sensational reports of dying trees.  The public was generally offered one explanation – human pollution – with pictures (often factory smoke stacks) to document the cause and effect.  Sulfur dioxide emissions pollution certainly did impact areas but dieoffs also occurred outside of pollution impact zones.  Looking back some researchers have come to view this incorrect conclusion as based on only short-term observations.
"Waldsterben may be understood as a problem of awareness:  Forest conditions that were believed to be "normal" in earlier times suddenly became a symbol of the growing fear of the destructive potential of human activities on the environment." (The air pollution/forest decline connection, The Waldsterben Theory Refuted). 
Some researchers may recall German public meetings in the 1970's with people carrying small trees into them.  I do and I was also alarmed by this air pollution aspect.  Yet in the decades to follow, air pollution was cited for local damage but soil chemistry had far more greater impacts.  However, many organizations at the time used the forest dieback to gain public policy initiatives.  Some reports mentioned complete forest loss in just five years.  (Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks).  The science community also stepped in and added to a growing sense of urgency – but in the years that followed soon lost credibility.  Hons Van Storch a German climate scientist details the harm of Waldsterben – "The resulting over selling and dramatization broke down in the 1990's, and news about adverse developments in German forests is now a hard sell in Germany."  A loss of credibility followed – Hans Van Storch in an interview mentions similar comments by others in the early 2000's.

"The damage for the scientists is enormous – nobody believes them any longer"
But the aspect of losing the Black Forest struck a public policy nerve and a May 25, 1984 a New York Times article titled "In A Dying Forest, The German Soul Withers Too" found "that 74 percent of those living near it would support extra taxes to help save the forests."

In the years that followed countless articles described the science that supported the loss of German forests.  These reports reached deeply into the value and beliefs of these who appreciated the forests and the habitats that supported them.  That is how eelgrass became a type of Waldsterben indicator here, it followed the same beliefs and value feelings – in this case the connection and appreciation of seafood.  As was the case a century ago, some of the same situations occurred, publicity and marketing that placed the decline of eelgrass as a direct human cause and effect.  (Hans Von Storch in Der Spiegel article states – "Scientific research faces a crisis because its public figures are over selling the issues to gain attention in a hotly contested market for news worthy information").
That is incorrect if it does not include soil science and the impacts of heat (climate change) and cultivation (storm energy) upon marine soils.  We need not look to Waldsterben as an example of overselling.  We have snake oil science here to compare.  Clark Stanley the once called "Rattlesnake King of North America" sold "Snake Oil Liniment" in the 1890's for healing many aliments although it at times did not contain any snake oil at all. A 1917 shipment seized by FDA investigators found it contained mineral spirits largely turpentine and beef blood and Mr. Stanley was fined $20 after selling hundreds of thousands of bottles (NPR has a great write up about this titled "A History of Snake Oil Salesmen," by Lakshmi Gandhi, August 26, 2013).

But this snake oil story was built upon some merit – some truth apparently the concept came from a practice of extracting oil from the Chinese water snake, and rich in omega 3 fatty acids which according to several sources did have some medicinal value.  (These Chinese water snakes consumed fish and therefore the source of the omega 3 fatty acids).  The fraud came in when the association of a product name became associated with something that had some foundation of some "truth."  It makes the deception (fraud) all the more believable and difficult to overcome because it contains beliefs and values – connected to some truth.  Chinese railroad workers did use it to sooth sore muscles.  (A 1989 analysis found that Chinese water snake oil contain large amounts of EPA eicosapentaenoic acid – Omega 3).

This association of something that had some truth is also what happened in this eelgrass case (my view).  Eelgrass does at times provide habitat services to a host of marine organisms (the same claim can be made for grass in a lawn) but to eat this steak the bone came first – this eelgrass cure came with regulatory policies attached to it.  Many call this today agenda based science (I guess one could say Clark Stanley had a monetary agenda) and the eelgrass habitat services promotion attached to public policies is perhaps the largest in half a century.  The agenda here was to build regulatory policy, not to rebuilt inshore fisheries which increased and decreased in the same general cycles as eelgrass itself – the cycle of the NAO – the Northeast Atlantic Oscillation.  Eelgrass habitat services in cold were quite different in times of extreme heat.  In heat, eelgrass was subject to soil chemistry – sulfuric acid and ammonia purging just as they were a century before.  This process in shallow finfish and shellfish nursery habitats greatly increases this negative impact.

One of the reasons (I feel) that often European studies identified sulfide formation in eelgrass meadows first is that in addition to the use of eelgrass here to restrict dredging (and it appears now the issuance of eelgrass "dredging bonds" is soon to come) policies included bottom disturbance of eelgrass by boating moorings as justification for zones of habitat protection and used as a nitrogen pollution indicator organism.  Many state and federal agencies had used eelgrass as a nitrogen pollution indicator organism and many TMDL nitrogen policies were connected to eelgrass health.  These policies are today under review (or should be - my view) because they often did not consider eelgrass habitat successive attributes or what occurs under eelgrass meadows once sapropel forms in a long climate cycle impact.  In other words we may have a scientific bias situation of enormous scale – eelgrass sapropel deposits when hot could emit large amounts of ammonia by way of bacterial action in them (this was known and published as far back as the 1910s) but not included in many nitrogen eelgrass TMDL studies. 

Eelgrass is also subject by the law of habitat succession – it is first in (or nearly so) in cultivated marine soils after storms but the last out often leaving a toxic sulfide sapropel compost behind.  It is in the sapropel that sulfate reducing bacteria feed – released sulfides purging ammonia while naturally complexing heavy metals.  Some of the pioneering research on these sulfate reducing bacterial strains in fact was conducted by EPA itself but was not apparently included in many TMDL documents (at least the ones I have seen).  Sapropel rotting organic matter in low oxygen is the food for Sulfate Reducing Bacteria and dangerous vibrio strains which in time damages eelgrass itself by high sulfide levels it creates which was reported in early Tampa Bay studies in the 1980s and 1990's.  Vibrio bacterial infections have killed Blue Crabbers to our south during the positive (hot) phase of the NAO) eelgrass/sapropel contain organisms that are highly sulfide tolerant and carry MSX cysts (York River Study Inke Sunila data).  The largest polychaete that contained MSX positive cysts were found in the York River was Spionidae (common name mud worm) (Inke Sunila 1/19/2014 email message) and perhaps needs storm(s) to simultaneous release active spores for outbreaks.  That indicates that activated cysts become exposed to acids and then become waterbourne.  Transmissions may need to be activated first – perhaps by a rapid low pH condition during or after a storm.  They perhaps can infect oysters only in the activated state which only lasts a few minutes and explains the absence of tissue to tissue transfer of MSX in many studies.  Sunila email to Tim Visel:
   
"Several large studies has been accomplished, but none published, since none of them resulted in verification of MSX within situ hybridization in the alternate host tissues."

And further on 1/9/2014 (Inke Sunila email to T. Visel)
"Mud snails have previously been suspected to be intermediate hosts for MSX infection and yield a positive result for MSX during outbreaks, but do the following organisms" (lists some 20 plus species of worms) and further,

"None of these organisms (refers to list – T. Visel) has been verified to be the intermediate host by demonstrating the presence of plasmodia in their tissue – and the positive results are believed to result from digestion of MSX spores.  The intermediate host is under one millimeter, and passes through pumps and filters into hatchery systems."

The stability of and organic matter accumulations under seagrass could help the release of buried cysts under it.  The organic content of eelgrass soils tend to rise over time, a type of culture media compost.  This sapropel process has been shown to bury disease cysts.
   
The Rise of Eelgrass Policy

The promotion of eelgrass was indeed targeted as much with today's marketing focus groups – seeking a constituency that needed quick answers for coastal problems.  When bay scallops declined it was promoted as the best setting surface, linked to forage (Brant), reef services to winter flounder and blue crab megalops habitats and many other coastal issues.  Often, fisheries declines were explained by a loss of eelgrass, it is this area that deserves the most scrutiny.  Eelgrass became sort of a perfume to mask the truth of a much larger issue – a history of long term natural climate change cycles of seafood abundance of the NAO, not so much human indifference.  The largest factor to eelgrass decline is heat; it changes soil chemistry much like the terrestrial grass dieoffs happen as well.  A warming climate therefore becomes less (not more) suitable for eelgrass?

To promote a solution for an aliment that would satisfy these policy needs eelgrass appeared to be the perfect coastal tonic.  It wasn't.  It's just a grass which performs many of the same habitat functions as a (grass) lawn on land.  Eelgrass is an aggressive colonizer of loose disturbed marine soils – it is very opportunistic like terrestrial grasses and benefits from coastal energy.  Storms that rinse marine soils of organic matter (acids) and cultivate them much like the garden shovel of any master gardener.  Reverses the process – it now collects organic matter and by doing so fosters bacterial growths, the same process that has been observed for terrestrial grasses .  Estuarine grasses are some of the most habitat aggressive species known on earth.  They move in quickly to hold/loose soils similar to those species on land.  Shellfishers and researchers in the 1960's noticed thick growths of eelgrass and energy/habitat connections.  One of the best references that connects soil energy (tidal flushing) into cultivated shallows is from Nantucket Island in the 1960's. Here in a report titled "An Inventory and Interpretation of Selected Resources.  The Island of Nantucket – A Collaborative Study Town of Nantucket, Massachusetts Dept of Natural Resources and The University of Massachusetts College of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service (1968) on page 42 contains this section,

"Pocomo meadow, as well as other areas in Nantucket and Madaket Harbor appear to have an increasing abundance of eel-grass.  (Zostera marina).  This algae is usually of great value in terms of protection to both finfish and shellfish but when over abundant in areas where tidal flushing is poor, it may tend to mat down and smother existing shellfish populations, another problem of thick eel grass beds is its ability to hinder shellfishermen who wish to locate and dig scallops or quahogs."

Marine soil disturbance helps eelgrass not harms it in a continuum of cycles.  Eelgrass takes hold in these cultivated marine soils and under the proper conditions can form a dense monoculture.  In time eelgrass is bound by the same laws of habitat succession as those found on land.  Eelgrass habitats succeed in a long "habitat clock" or cycle, in heat eelgrass meadows will purge toxic compounds and turn into natures sulfur seafood killing zones.  This part of eelgrass ecology that is apparently often forgotten today (as was the bad side effects of magic cures a century ago) and rarely reported in the more recent eelgrass literature.  The aspect of eelgrass damaging in time the very species it was proported to help is missing from this short term snapshot examination or habitat studies of the bay scallop.  It was a cycle of eelgrass that coastal residents as well as shore fishers noticed in eastern Long Island New York.  After the hurricanes between 1938 and 1966 eelgrass thrived in shallow storm cultivated soils.  In a report during the same time period of the Nantucket example a 1970 Nassau – Suffolk Regional Planning Board/Sea Grant Project GH63 F. A. Smith et al – "Fourteen Selected Marine Resource Problems of Long Island, New York, Descriptive Evaluations on page 27 contains this section, pertaining to Eelgrass –

"The Abundance of eelgrass throughout its range has historically been periodically affected by a serious wasting disease of unknown etiology.  In the Eastern United States, the last serious epidemic occurred in the early 1930's.  It was not until the mid-1940's that signs of a widespread recovery were noted; and now, 25 years later, the recovery has progressed to the point where eelgrass is regarded by many as a major marine resource problem for long Island.  The rational for this designation is based on the difficulties encountered by boating enthusiasts and swimmers utilizing stretches of water where eelgrass flourishes, such as South Oyster, Great South, and Moriches Bays and adjacent waters, as well as by people living near the shore line who are exposed to the obnoxious odors of decaying eelgrass.  In addition, standing growth can interfere with shellfish harvesting and sport fishing activities."

In the decades to follow the cycle of eelgrass in shallow water appears to be directly connected to the cyclic weather pattern known as the "NAO" or North Atlantic Oscillation.  The period of 1880 to 1920 had a reversal between cold water species to those that live in warmer waters – most noticed by the decline of freshwater brook trout, lobsters, smelt and bay scallops.  These declines were offset by huge increases in oysters, blue crabs, black sea bass, and striped bass.  This cycle was largely repeated between 1972 and 2012.

We should be very worried of short term habitat studies that promote environmental policy as this eelgrass example now clearly illustrates.  Mervin Roberts a naturalist from Old Lyme, CT and a good friend first raised this alarm bell in 1985 about this bias and highlights the dangers of using "these point in time" studies warning of a bias that John Pauly was to mention a decade later in his book "Shifting Baselines," from Mervin Robert's 1985 book titled "The Tide Marsh Guide to Fishes" on page 354 and 355 (1985):

"Biological surveys and censuses are difficult to design and sometimes impossible to carry out so as to be free of bias.  They are often hard to compare since very few are conducted under identical circumstances; but the even the accuracy of our national census of people is frequently challenged.

Now please come back to the word which appeared several paragraphs previous:  bias, if you are a political or social activist you may have pounced on "bias" and wondered how scientists apply it.  As a matter of facts, scientists used it long before it became a catchword.  Examples of bias in science are sometimes found in collections of living organisms whose population is in motion.  To be without bias, such a collection would have to be made over an extended period with no regard to inclement weather, ice, time of day or holidays.

Consider the swallows at the Capistrano Mission in California.  How would a report on their habits look if no observations were made during those few days when they were all arriving or all leaving?  Consider a flyhatch on a trout stream, all over in one day, only once a year.  Consider a run of river herring.  If you miss it, no one will be able to make you believe it.

I submit that, we have no business establishing rigid categories for the works of Mother Nature." 

Fishers have experienced these long term cycles in fish and shellfish abundance and have consistently resisted these "cures" from snap shot ecology studies.  They are to be commended (my view) and their habitat observations are valid – and as a group I have found to have much more habitat knowledge over longer time periods.  They consistently say it's a cycle and from what I have been able to determine these observations are highly accurate – they are correct, it is cycles. 

I hope in time that fishers will have a seat at the climate change table – they have so much habitat knowledge to contribute – that is perhaps now more in the hands of the next generation than mine.   

I respond to all emails at [email protected]  (Students interested in eelgrass habitat research I suggest they investigate eelgrass reports from the German Bight, North Sea and Denmark; they contain far less public policy bias – my view, Tim Visel).

Eelgrass and Oxygen Poor Habitats

The story of eelgrass over time resembles in some ways the snake oil science of the past century (some truth but eclipsed by false promise) and it might take just as long to sort out the eelgrass case history.  A century ago federal officials seized a shipment of "Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment" a tonic and skin scream which even today brings up the concept of fake science in 1917 snake oil evolved from an observation perhaps that can be traced to immigrant Chinese laborers working on the west coast railroads who applied an oil rendered from Chinese water snakes that primarily consumed fish.  Therefore snakes when rendered into an oil could contain large amounts of the omega 3 fatty acid.  That oil in fact had some anti-inflammatory properties and Chinese railroad workers applied this oil to sooth muscle strains and joint pain attributed to railway work.  People could see this and as a cure explanations pointed back to this use – adding the mystery of the product itself.  The problem was the source of this tonic, Chinese water snakes did not exist here and to back door the concept of medicinal value, fraudulent manufacturers turned to rattlesnakes instead.

The fact that they did not eat fish and therefore did not possibly contain high amounts of the fish omega 3 compounds was "lost" in the process.  For nearly a half a century snake oil salesmen moved from town to town selling a tonic that at times did not even contain rattlesnake oil (overtime the supply of rattlesnakes also became depleted as they proved difficult to handle and expensive).  The concept that something poisonous (rattlesnakes) could be beneficial took a great deal of promotion and testimonials (frequently with payment by the manufacturer) advertisements and false claims.  However, the basis of the claims did have some truth.  The oil from the Chinese water snake did in actual fact likely contained some Omega 3 compounds and could actually if not oxidized relieve joint pain.

After reading some labels from snake oil bottles, it is easy to see how salespeople targeted specific groups with such a broad range of cures, offering "cures" (this language that was eventually changed to "treatment" or "remedy" as cures did not happen and promotions as such often signaled a changing public attitude to false "cures" and it became at times dangerous to then promote these fluids as "cures").  This advertisement is typical of those that appeared in newspapers, just a few days before a supply of the oil would arrive in town, (typical newspaper advertisement is from Lakshmi Gandhi of National Public Radio – article titled "A History of Snake Oil Salesman" which aired on NPR August 26, 2013):

"There is nothing at all like it.  It banishes pain as if by magic and conquers all rheumatic pain in all their cruel forms and stages nothing better for lame back, painful joints neuralgia, inflammation, bites of insects, swelling sprains, and all painful aliments, cures toothache in 45 seconds and headache in 45 seconds.  Nothing better for catarrh and deafness."

Other manufacturers promised cures for nearly all diseases including Measles, Mumps, Tuberculosis, Diphtheria and colds.  When a 1917 shipment of Clark Stanley's snake oil was seized by federal authorities, the snake oil did not contain any snake products at all; it consisted of mineral oil, beef blood, red pepper extract and some turpentine.  Within a decade of the 1917 analysis, the truth about snake oil was out but it took nearly fifty years before and was a promising cure, which took on a role of false science in medicine.  It took so long because in my opinion it was a modest claim that contained accurate limited information but over the decades and to sell more product claims became first "inflated" and then fraudulent.

The NAO and Eelgrass

Do we have same the situation today with eelgrass – an important part of coastal ecology but subject to natural cycles.  I believe we do.  Eelgrass meadows have been linked to solving many coastal ailments connected to the NAO.

The EPA was formed at the end of a 4 decade long negative NAO climate cycle in effect – a strong low pressure off the coast of Iceland - what Nathanial Bowstitch termed the graveyard of the Atlantic storms.  It is the presence of a low pressure system off the west coast of Iceland (also termed the "semi-permanent Icelantic low").  As described by Elise Reclus in his version of The Ocean's Atmosphere and Life 1878, this climate feature has been known for over a century.  Elise Reclus (1878) writes on page 347:

"Thousands of persons in the United States, Canada, the Antilles, Hindoorstan and South Africa have joined their efforts to those of all the official savant (scientists – T. Visel) to note down the innumerable oscillation of heat and cold which by their grouping, many reveal the laws of temperature."

In 1955, Hurd Willet at MIT put a name on the most distinctive feature of a negative North Atlantic Oscillation and climate predictions - here in the US as the term "Polar Vortex" the outbreak of cold Canadian air that forms the characteristics horseshoe shaped storm pattern in the central United States.  In 1972 the same year that the cold began to fade, as the NAO turned to a more positive phase warming now commenced.  Warmer with less storms and in time a "great heat" and winters relatively mild and often snow free (it was a climate pattern that was to be especially rough on southern New England Ski Operators).  As these warm summers accumulated the waters of Long Island Sound warmed as well, resulting in a lobster die off of 1998 and a decade long increase in blue crabs – almost exactly a similar lobster die off in 1898 and by 1912 Connecticut was producing commercial quantities of blue crabs.  By 2010 Southern New England was experiencing its second "blue crab explosion" in a century.  It had turned warm again as it did in the 1890's when eelgrass dominated marine soils subject to storms.

Against this warm period, in many ways an exact repeat of the 1880 to 1920 "hot term" or "great heat" in which eelgrass first thrived following the brutally cold and storm filled 1870s which saw marine soils "cultivated" by numerous storms and much colder oxygen filled seawater.  In times of cold and numerous storms waves would tend to clean out organic matter washed off the land into bays and coves –a type of marine compost called humus.  This compost did collect in shallow poorly flushed coves and bays in times of low energy and heat now become sapropel organic – deposit that "rots" in the absence of oxygen by sulfur reducing bacteria.  Without oxygen this process is often described as putrification.  A greasy blue-black deposit grows in oxygen poor waters.  And what stabilized the compost was a surface grass "eelgrass" a plant that existed in sulfides and was the hibernation habitat for eels with a high tolerance for sulfide and a secondary oxygen source pathway.  The 1870s was a dramatic change from the heat of the 1860s, coves were "cultivated" by numerous storms for these shallow marine soils strong storms and hurricanes were like forest fires, another type of organic reduction energy and pathway that much like hurricanes started habitat successional processes.  Sulfate bacterial species were replaced with colder oxygen requiring bacteria – which would greatly change the chemistry of shallow water habitats.  The bacteria in marine organic deposits declared war – on each other – helped by climate and energy.  Shoreline residents reported the change as an increase of storms and decrease of temperature, but few reported on soil conditions other than the oyster industry.  In the 1950s and 1960s a growing eelgrass monoculture overwhelmed clam habitats.  The cycle of eelgrass relates to hot and cold patterns of the NAO.

The coastal observers, navigation and fisheries soon the experienced and recorded the energy of numerous "gales" was destructive, it damaged wharf and piers, sunk fishing vessels and steamships then vital to maritime commerce with many deaths in a period that still lacked "good roads."  Storms did cast large amounts of seafood on beaches, clams, and lobsters pushed up in windrows along coastal beaches to be wasted and mentioned in so many historical articles.  Storms and the energy they provided became "negative," a waste of seafood, the destruction of piers, wharfs and vessels and loss of human life.  In time energy or disturbance became "bad" for the people who lived along the shore as it often was.  The 1870s gave rise to the term "Devils Belt" for the east west orientation of Long Island Sound that made these numerous Northeasters so deadly the shipping and navigation maritime interests.  Then as the 1880's began, the energy now slowed and temperatures rose into the 1890's; killer heat waves now replaced the brutal killing colds of the 1870s (See IMEP #69, The Hunt for Cattle Tick Fever, posted December 17, 2018, on The Blue Crab ForumTM).  Now was the time of the period I term the Great Heat following John Hammond's great "Hot Term" on Cape Cod.  Chatham, John Hammond's home town a century ago, would lead the country in soft shell clam harvests, 50 years later under a negative NAO – it would be bay scallops, eelgrass and then a huge habitat change. 

It was during this four decade the damaging aspects of eelgrass became known to the shellfish industry – 1880 to 1920.  After the constant energy of the 1870s subsided eelgrass moved into these cultivated "clean" marine soils.  It northern areas it was colder and eelgrass quickly was often first, in along with clams and bay scallops.  Like terrestrial grasses after a forest fire eelgrass started to grow its biology makes it aggressive similar to the crab grass Digitaria.  Shellfishers at first noticed a patch here and there but in time these patches grew larger (often circles or rings) and formed a meadow – a monoculture of grass which now in a process succeeds to a peat (sod) gathering terrestrial organics washed onto it from land (primarily leaves). 

As eelgrass peat rises it suffocates the shellfish below killing them.  As eelgrass peat continues to rise it would restrict water circulation in some areas starving bay scallops (small meats) mentioned in several Massachusetts State reports.  Communities from New York to The Chesapeake Bay saw the creation of eelgrass cutting machines, drawn cutters and even dredging projects to restore tidal flows.  US Fish Commission reports even linked the outbreak of human disease to water stagnation from dense eelgrass growths in Groton, (Poquonnock River) Connecticut in the 1880's.  This connection was incorrect but it laid the foundation for later public health regulations.

David Belding a shellfish researcher for the State of Massachusetts many times mentioned the negative aspects of eelgrass to all shellfisheries even to the bay scallop.  When the climate pattern turns to heat, the biochemical and bacterial components change to the deadly sulfur cycle as the positive reef clean and eelgrass of cold water turns into the brown and furry eelgrass of disease toxic discharges.  These sulfur and sulfide toxic conditions were known a century ago.  When eelgrass returned to the Canadian Maritimes shellfishers often tried to prevent it from doing so.  This is a quote from one of the first eelgrass articles by Clarence Cottam an early US Fish and Wildlife researcher who studied eelgrass in 1930's and 1940's.

Clarence Cottam – The Present Eelgrass Condition And Problems On The Atlantic Coast of North America Clarence Cottam and C. E. Addy pg. 387 to 398 Twelfth North American Wildlife Conference Transcripts is found this section, a comment from   Mr. Bruce S. Wright (New Brunswick Canada) commented "What is the reaction of the fishermen on the coast to the appearance of eelgrass – I know in the Maritimes, they deliberately dig it out when it comes back; they don't want it back."  Eelgrass reproduction is much like the terrestrial crab grass Digitaria sanguinalis that had spread to such a point it eliminated clam sets in the many clam beds (See David Belding Massachusetts reports).

After the stormy 1950's, eelgrass again came into the estuaries repeating much the same negative impacts to shellfish habitats as the 1900's.  The State of Massachusetts has the best historical references to the negative impacts of eelgrass to shellfish as the 1950's went into the 1960's even into the early 1970's the state reports consistently made mention of the "eelgrass problem."  In many coves and bays eelgrass suffocated oyster and clam habitats, and by 1966 Massachusetts had planned herbicides experiments to trying to control the aggressive expansive natural characteristics of eelgrass in Pleasant Bay Cape Cod (Personal Communication John Hammond T. Visel).

In 1965, a branch of the Canadian Fisheries Department put an entire research team together to try to control eelgrass but by 1969 after trials and experiments gave up on these control efforts.  They despite many methods could not stop eelgrass growth (see Fisheries Research Board of Canada Manuscript Report Series No. 905 "Experiments In The Chemical Control Of Eelgrass Zostera marina 1965" MLH Thomas Saint Andrews Biological Station (1967).  Eelgrass by its very character responds in habitat succession growths as terrestrial grass after a forest fire but that it also changes biochemical characteristics of soil by its ability to form a peat.  There is no practical way of stopping the marine succession of eelgrass without energy – such as those storms contained during a negative NAO.  This is the situation surrounding habitat transitions from grass meadows to scrub lands eventually to forests.  These eelgrass marine soils can also succeed.

In many coves, the aggressive habitat eelgrass monoculture is similar to that of the Mongolian phragmities monocultures in along our marshes. A habitat history with importation of seed as a hemp replacement can be found in IMEP 18 part 2 posted June 19, 2014.  (This strain was selected and seed purified in USDA greenhouses (1912) and was later selected for its loose – disturbed soil holding ability and planted along many rail and road construction projects).  In hot seawater eelgrass meadow "habitat services" dramatically changes, it seals organic matter below – removing the ability for oxygen requiring bacteria to live, that is replaced by strains that use sulfate and release ammonia and sulfides during the process.  Recently researchers now recognize that as grass monocultures rich bacterial colonies live under marine grasses and they include members of deadly Vibrio bacterial group (See Draft Sequences of Two Vibrio Strains Isolated from Seagrass Sediment, Lee et al., 2016).  In heat an eelgrass cover over sapropel can lead to ammonia discharges as part of the biochemical respiratory process.  Although eelgrass is often praised for holding organics, these organics in heat support the deadly sulfur cycle.  Recent studies indicate that possibly eelgrass meadows hold bacterial (vibrio) reserves as a hibernation habitat.  Although they grip organic deposits firmly as a peat, they provide little direct shoreline protection – other than perhaps a few extra minutes in the life time of energy exposure in a strong storm event.  They do not provide the shoreline the same protection of a breakwater.  More recently articles have promoted eelgrass as a source of "blue carbon" stripped carbon chains but this is largely a natural process of coal formation by a group of bacteria – termed the methanogens.  They in turn release methane and extremely powerful greenhouse gas as part of the process.  The ecological consequences of carbon sequestion have negative habitat implications for organisms that had lived in these marine soils, but rarely mentioned in blue carbon reports.

Recently some eelgrass studies have linked healthy eelgrass meadows growing in clear waters to medicinal value in helping reduce human disease pathogens – while it is true that such areas contain lower bacteria levels it is natural to have this happen in clear waters, eelgrass needs sunlight to live (photosynthesis) and therefore clear water allows ultra violet light to kill bacteria better than cloudy or turbid waters in the same area (See Brown Waters Menhaden Fish Kills and Blue Crab, SR #2, posted October 6, 2016 on the Blue Crab Forum™ NE Crabbing Resources thread).  One recent article mentioned divers getting sick while exploring tropical waters but those who swam nearest to eelgrass appeared to be less sick (New Science shows Seagrass Meadows Suppress Pathogens).

Because the eelgrass and bacterial cleansing (UV) process both need clear water it is natural that clear water with or without eelgrass has better UV light penetration therefore less harmful surface bacteria.  What these studies do not mention is below the eelgrass organics trapped by eelgrass contains huge amounts of bacteria below it and not subject to ultraviolent light penetration.  These protected shielded from UV light contain Vibrios linked to lobster shell disease (the first shell disease lobsters were caught near New York City organic sludge dumps, See New York Times, May 22, 1988 Shell Bacteria Kill East Coast Lobsters Near Ocean Dump" and grow in sapropels.  As early as the late 1980's researchers knew that sapropels had enhanced organic deposits could foster vibrio bacteria – the bacteria that breaks down chitin a log chain derivative of glucose the primary shell material of crustaceans, known today as "shell disease."  As temperatures warmed into the 1980's incidence of shell disease in lobsters and crabs increased especially near organics.  In 1987 the EPA ordered New York to move its dumpsite to offshore areas (known today as the 106 mile site) and within a year lobster fishers started to see shell disease in catches.  New York Times article – May 22, 1988.

"Lobstermen in Point Judith RI say on unusually high percentage of lobsters and red crabs caught in undersea canyons about 70 miles nautical miles north west of the dump site, which is 120 miles southeast of New York City, have the disease... In burn spot disease chitnoclastic (shell destroying) bacteria eat through the crustacean's shell....  Mr. Bruce Estrella said the bacteria which breeds in the mud of lobstering grounds often breaks out into an epidemic in the vicinity of sewage dumps or dredge spoils where large amounts of organic sludge collects such as in Boston Harbor.  In a healthy environment fewer than 1 percent of lobsters will have the tell tale holes."

Many researchers have recently found reservoir pools of bacteria under marine grass (eelgrass) growths.

Agriculture researchers of the last century wrote about the bacterial killing ability of sunlight to terrestrial soil bacteria and advised farmers to harvest bacterial inoculants living under grass on only cloudy days to prevent the loss of "good" soil bacteria those exposed to ultra violet light.

Homer J. Wheeler, once head of the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station and briefly University of Rhode Island President wrote articles about rich bacterial cultures that grew below terrestrial grasses (typical of all grasses) as a barren soil bacterial inoculation process.  He urged farmers to harvest the bacterial culture below the grass "on a dull day" least the culture of bacteria be killed by sunlight.  (See IMEP #61-A titled "Eels, Eelgrass and the Bay Scallop Fishery of 1880" posted March 28, 2017on The Blue Crab Forum™ Fishing, Eeling and Oystering thread).

The association of UV light to clear water is a natural process – it is natural that when waters are clear, bacteria counts would be lower.  Eelgrass and its presence cannot minimize human disease although several recent articles contain testimonials that they were perhaps "less sick" swimming near eelgrass (See Seagrasses Reduce Bacteria in Polluted Waters, 2017).

John Hammond's Law of Habitat Succession

"Planting a tree in a desert, because trees are associated with ground water will not necessarily make it rain."  That comment was from John Hammond to me in the early 1980's.  The Cape was in a horrendous drought, in the early 1980s, salt water was finding itself in homeowner wells, and other wells were running dry.  But some groups started planting trees on the Cape believing shade would slow moisture loss.  That was the desert John Hammond referred to as the Cape soils were very sandy.  These plantings largely failed although the concept of shade had merit trees need rain as well (We have Arbor Day from the 1880 to 1920 period).

The Cape then was in a climate cycle a positive phase of the NAO.  But unfortunately that same concept happened in many 1990's and 2000's eelgrass planting (restoration) projects.  Eelgrass was planted into sapropel sulfide rich organic oozes in which eelgrass had little change to survive or spread.  When the transplants failed human fishing/boating, pollution or development was often the reason for failure – not basic soil science.  Many of these eelgrass restoration efforts lacked any habitat history nor soil tests for sulfate acid soils, and like the tree planted in a desert success was largely a natural climate cause, not human.  But article after article mentioned eelgrass transplant failures as a result of coastal development – even blaming swimmers and boaters.  But researchers or some environmental organizations are not obligated to present opposite or opposing views or historical research.  This is in the legal profession is noted as a discovery process and in debate terms arguing, the opposing view or "dissoi logo" in Greek for "contrasting argument." We often have agencies represent a type of truth – in advertising.  Although the Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906, it is only in 1924 that a products label should accurately list ingredients.  Later nutritional claims/aspects also needed clarification in 1990.  Although the negative aspects of eelgrass monoculture (meadows) points to an "aggressive grass" that moves into disturbed soils – even those soils below water (very similar to aggressive grasses on land) researchers are not required to mention them. 

For example, some of the habitat studies I participated in on Cape Cod found the highest species richness biological diversity on a mixture of habitat types – not just one type.  Subtidal habitats are not stable in the marine environment as on land and are subject to climate impacts such as rainfall, hurricanes or forest fires.  Subtidal habitats over time change (read succeed) very often outside of human control or effort and do so in response to energy (storms) and heat/temperature.  In fact energy that rinses subtidal soils of sulfides and acids, restores soil pore space with basic sea water largely controls the condition for eelgrass very similar to soil cultivation for terrestrial crops.  In this case "energy" pore water soil opening is actually "good for eelgrass."

The Narrow Science View

Researchers are not required to give any explanations other than the ones listed as the focus of the study or review – a tunnel vision of science – usually an objective or agenda that tends to close off other viewpoints.  Many of the eelgrass reports of New England mention disturbance of eelgrass as a leading cause to its decline in coverage – and propose regulatory objectives (agenda biased) while ignoring reports of huge eelgrass growths after storm soil cultivation events, (tunnel vision).  In the science research community, this is termed citation amnesia and is becoming a recognized research problem.  Some of the densest stronger eelgrass growths occurred when the Cape Cod Canal was dredged and mentioned by Clarence Cottam himself in some of his early eelgrass reports – by concepts and terms that John Hammond had often used in describing heavy shellfish sets in "new sand" being cast up on Monomoy was confirmed for eelgrass as well – pg. 394 of Transactions of the North American Wildlife Conference Vol 2 (1947) has this statement Cottam and Addy commenting on the Cape Cod Canal project.

"This dike was built with sand pumped from the bottom of Buzzards Bay:  work on this dike was beginning June 1936 and finished February 1937.  The dike thus consists of "new sand" that is sand which hasn't been in shallow water for many years, probably in historic times.  Yet on both the north and south sides of this dike, are healthy stands of eelgrass, standing which have among the best when I saw during the entire summer" (Stevens, 1946). 

But who knew that energy helped eelgrass by rinsing marine soils of acids and sulfides, fishers saw this transition (and its overtaking shellfish beds), fishery area managers knew it, the eelgrass problem was mentioned in several State of Massachusetts reports but the public was offered few opportunities to learn or read about an environmental fisheries history associated with it – my view.

Eelgrass Is it our Waldsterben?

Is the story of eelgrass our snake oil of modern time?  What started as a good educational awareness effort about the coast and habitat cycles is now is associated with possible funding effect bias.  A review the habitat services of eelgrass its marine protection policies is needed.  Eelgrass protection has now been incorporated into coastal protection policies across the United States.

This is not to say all the current environmental policies are poor – some are very good and very much needed I speak only to those who promoted eelgrass for policy, and what was promised to the public, more eelgrass more fish and now storing blue carbon without fully explaining what that carbon sequestion means to coastal habitats or seafood.

This is how eelgrass got started at first an important habitat type to the bay scallop – it does provide habitat services, it acts like a reef and provides habitats for fish and blue crabs when oxygen is sufficient. But when its gets hot eelgrass flexes its habitat muscle – its tendency to out compete other vegetation types – it spreads and dominates it does what all grasses do naturally it binds loose estuarine soils.  It is the grass that follows the hurricanes and moves into cleaned loose estuarine soils rinses of organic acids and sulfate reducing bacteria – that takes time.  It takes advantage of death and in the end starts the cycle over.

It holds soils – much like its terrestrial counterparts but has seen habitat cycles before – its ability to live in a large range of temperatures is directly related to energy – it needs energy to live.  In long hot cycles it builds up trapping organics between its leaves and moves toward the surface.  That is natural and here the negative habitat services come to view, it helps create sapropel – the compost that feeds the desulfovibrio bacteria – the flesh and shell eaters of seafood.  In the terrestrial environment, eventually the sulfate reducing bacteria it helped create turn against it as well the sulfide acidic conditions rot the roots of the plants and what remains below is a blue/black greasy deposit (this is the muck that grabs you crab net pole and won't let go!)  Fishers and crabbers experience sapropel – it purges sulfides and has sulfur smells often mentioned as "rotten eggs."  It now produces enormous quantities of ammonia and sea lettuce may now form a thick mat over it, sapropel deposits may seem even to be green at low tide but once disturbed given off the match stick sulfur smells. 

Eelgrass, in reality, has two habitat sides the good –"the clean and green" – with oxygen and the bad – the "brown and furry" eelgrass with sulfur – the problem with our current eelgrass research was it wasn't really about habitat information – it was a way to gain public attention, promote environmental policies, such as protection and conservation by way of the misuse of habitat information (my view Tim Visel).  The eelgrass habitat successional soil processes was forgotten –and also its past shellfish habitat history.

Because of its public policy agenda (nitrogen pollution, dredging, sanctuary areas, and mooring buffer zones) only the good side of eelgrass was presented – the bad or long term habitat history of its role in sapropel creation – the sulfate reducing bacteria that consume organics beneath the eelgrass meadows was "forgotten."  This is a type of research misconduct called citation amnesia or bibliography negligence when research was available that did not perhaps "properly" align with a desired research outcome so it was "forgotten."   

That is why very few fishers or crabbers have heard about the negative aspects of eelgrass or sapropel.  When it came to eelgrass it was all good – the problem was of course that it was not and now, perhaps subject to fraud or science bias investigations (my view).  The middle 1980s in this growing heat estuaries became hot, oxygen levels dropped (natural as hot sea water naturally contains less oxygen) and eelgrass died off – most likely to sulfide sapropel and dense algal blooms fed by bacterial ammonia.  But eelgrass had a association to bay scallops and waterfowl such as Brant.  Its decline became a way to mobilize the public to pay attention to estuaries.  Which of course is good but to do that some groups promoted eelgrass – forgetting any negative impacts.  Sapropels (black mayonnaise now built up in coves.  In time stabilized by eelgrass changed its habitat services instead of the "good" it fostered habitat conditions that were in heat now "bad." Eelgrass research needs to include soil science – My view, T. Visel.

I respond to all emails at [email protected]


Appendix #1
Page 6 February 18, 1983
Cape Cod VILLAGE Advertiser

Editorial
Too much eelgrass?
I was pleased to read Mr. Nawoichik's letter in the February 3rd edition of the Village Advertise commenting on Mr. Dow's January 20th article regarding how beneficial eel grass is in our bays. I wonder how many studies have been done on eelgrass, codium and other grasses when they become over-abundant?
In the Hyannis bays, the over-abundance is more than obvious by the huge windows piled high on the beaches, the nuisance caused by blocked marsh ditches as well as the considerable expense to the town to remove it each year.

If great amounts of eel grass are the criteria for good crops of shellfish, then certainly this area should produce extremely well each year. Just the opposite is the case and it appears that other town s up
Cape from Barnstable are experiencing the same effects. In some of the bays, the eel grass and codium are slime and silt covered, greatly reducing the flow of nutrients to the shellfish. This silt laden mess is certainly not preferred as a setting place for shellfish as they leave the veliger stage. When the roots finally get so thick that they crowd one another out the loser's decay; and with no oxygen in the solid, create gases that shellfish cannot live in.

I have glassed the bays on the south side of Barnstable for a third of a century and when I started there was very little eel grass, no codium, and small amounts of floating grasses. We had a good crop of scallops each year, were allowed a bushel of oysters per week on our family permit as well as a peck of cl

[Stabilizer]

I'd like the Executive Summary.

[tattoo]

good read