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#1

General Discussion / Re: Medal ring to fill bushel

Last post by Wallco99 - Today at 10:46:10 AM

Captain Bruce crab supplies.

#2

General Discussion / Re: Medal ring to fill bushel

Last post by Logical1 - Today at 10:38:13 AM

Not sure what metal rings you are talking about. I have seen people cut the top quarter of one of these barrels and invert it into the basket. Crabs fall in like using a funnel but can't climb out.

#3

General Discussion / Medal ring to fill bushel

Last post by claysbreaker - Today at 07:30:54 AM

Where can I find the medal rings to put in bushel basket to fill bushel?  Any ideal of cost?  Thanks  

#4

MD Crabbing Reports / Re: Eastern Shore Lower half O...

Last post by Fishofff - January 10, 2025, 11:05:22 PM

Jake. Thanks for sayin' hey at the Farm Show. Good to talk crabbing with someone in January. Maybe we'll catch up on the water sometime. Good luck this season. Scott. Fishofff

#5

MD Crabbing Resources / Re: Choptank boat rental

Last post by novicecrabber - January 10, 2025, 01:42:21 PM

I live in Cambridge and I can't recall anyone renting boats that setup for crabbing.  You may want to also contact Ferry Point Marina and Composite Yacht.  Both are right a the foot of the bridge on the talbot side.  You could also check the Hyatt in Cambridge.  I know that Blackwater Adventures runs the rental kayaks there.  The Hyatt also rents jet skis, so it worth a try to call them.  Are you looking to run a trot line, or just snatch pots?

I have 30 Perfectionist traps. I used to go to the Bill Burton Pier all the time. Do you know of any other public piers in the area?  I appreciate the information.

#6

MD Crabbing Resources / Re: Choptank boat rental

Last post by Big Liar - January 09, 2025, 10:33:07 AM

I live in Cambridge and I can't recall anyone renting boats that setup for crabbing.  You may want to also contact Ferry Point Marina and Composite Yacht.  Both are right a the foot of the bridge on the talbot side.  You could also check the Hyatt in Cambridge.  I know that Blackwater Adventures runs the rental kayaks there.  The Hyatt also rents jet skis, so it worth a try to call them.  Are you looking to run a trot line, or just snatch pots?

[IMEP #148: Eelgrass Monocultures Fail in High Heat 1897]

#7

Fishing, Eeling & Oystering / IMEP #148: Eelgrass Monocultur...

Last post by BlueChip - January 09, 2025, 10:11:28 AM

IMEP #148: Eelgrass Monocultures Fail in High Heat 1897
The Danger of Marine Composts in High Heat 1880-1920
"Understanding Science Through History"
Viewpoint of Tim Visel, no other agency or organization 
March 2019 Revised to January 2022
This is a delayed report - March 2024
Tim Visel Retired from The Sound School June 30, 2022
Thank you, The Blue Crab Forum^TM for posting these 
Habitat History reports – 350,000 views to date



A Note from Tim Visel


Shallow waters obtain the most direct solar heating – they (bay bottoms) can absorb heat and become even hot with temperatures over 100oF on cloudless days.  This heat changes the biochemistry of collected plant tissue into a marine compost that also gets hot.  Although much has been written about controlling the temperature of terrestrial composts between 140oF to 160oF almost nothing has been published about what happens when marine composts get too hot.  In high heat, marine composts can become toxic.


Terrestrial composters monitor the heat of compost piles carefully and turn them to keep composts from becoming too hot – killing off oxygen requiring bacteria the ones that shed nitrate for those that produce ammonia.  This is a segment of a Rodale Institute "Turning Compost by Temperature" from a decade ago (2012).    


"National Organic Program (NOP) guidelines require compost to be turned a minimum of five times within a 15 day period, during which time the temperature must be maintained between 131 – 170 degrees F."


A sign that a marine compost is too hot is that it smells of sulfide (rotten eggs) and a shortage of oxygen to support oxygen requiring bacteria.  In simple terms, bacteria that live in no or low oxygen conditions have taken over the composting process.  The other sign is that the land compost is too wet – here the sweet smell of ammonia leachate is a sign of low oxygen as well.  Marine composts often shed ammonia in large amounts into water below a thermocline – a sharp water temperature division layer.  This layer can cause oxygen poor waters.  This sea water compost is covered with water not unlike deposits in lakes and ponds.  They both can produce a high organic ooze, a sapropel.


The only time sulfide is released on land is just after a major flood.  Here, organic matter is often buried and sealed from oxygen.  When that happens, it may purge hydrogen sulfide.  Heavy rain can also, at times, produce foul earth odors.  In some texts, it is termed "petrichor," which also has a bacterial connection.


When reviewing the literature about marine composts and heat purging ammonia, I often find reference only to my papers.  Although the ability of eelgrass (as with land grasses) to concentrate organic matter is praised in high heat and stagnant water, this often is a harmful process.  That is missing today, the action of bacteria in marine composts and the heat that bacteria can produce in forming eelgrass peat.


That was not always the case.  Parker P. Trask (1955) Recent Marine Sediments contains several articles that mentioned the ability of eelgrass to gather organics (composts) in shallow water.  Earlier Irving Field in 1922 "The Biology and Economic Value of the Sea Mussel" talks about the same process. 


Irving A. Field was a Special Investigator with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, US Fisheries Biological Station, Wood Hole, MA.  His 1922 bulletin contains a very detailed description of eelgrass composting by measuring sugars beneath eelgrass growths – pg. 210, contains this section:


"Petersen and Jensen (1911) tried to show that, in all probability, the plants of the eelgrass belt and not the plankton organisms should be regarded as the main sources of the organic matter of the sea bottom in Danish waters.  Their reasoning is based on the fact that the quantity of carbon in a series of bottom samples is directly proportional to the amount of Zostera vegetation and not to the quantity of plankton present." 


 And further – Jensen (1911), (my comments, T. Visel):


"By chemical means, however Jensen was able to determine the source of eelgrass matter in the sea bottom.  He found that the eelgrass cells contain a considerable quantity of starch like substances known to chemists as pentosans (sugar, Tim Visel), whereas those of diatoms are composed mainly of silica and those of peridineans (algae) of fairly pure cellulose.  By comparing analysis of various bottom samples of organic matter with those of eelgrass and diatoms the following conclusions were reached, 

• In the more sheltered waters the organic matter of the sea bottoms to a preeminent degree is formed by eelgrass.
• In the more open waters, at least half of the organic matter is probably formed by eelgrass.
• In the deepest waters the organic matter is probably formed chiefly by plankton organisms."

The ability to form a marine compost was not praised by shellfish researchers a century ago.  Field (1922) highlights this perception by listing eelgrass as a "passive enemy" of the blue mussel, pg. 219 contains this section:


"Eelgrass, Zostera marina, is one of the most destructive weeds which grows in profusion on the sheltered beds.  It not only intercepts the currents which bear the food supply of the Mollusk but causes very often such a heavy deposition of silt that the mussels are smothered or even completely buried beneath it.  Their decomposing bodies then form richest kind of fertilizer on which the eelgrass thrives."  (This is often called "mussel mud" in the historical agriculture literature when used as a soil amendent, T. Visel).


David Belding a State of Massachusetts shellfish researcher shares similar comments about the eelgrass ability to build a marine compost.  His research mentions negative impacts to the bay scallop, quahog and softshell clam from eelgrass in his studies of Massachusetts shellfisheries (A reprint of his works was made available by my old employer The Cape Cod Cooperative Extension Service in 2004.)  His research time period was 1905 to 1920, a time in which eelgrass attained massive habitat coverage.


Swimming and Eelgrass - 1890's


One of my first "paid jobs was for the Neptune Beach Association (Madison, CT) as a "beach raker." An early morning visit to the beach meant raking the wrack and burying seaweed in holes above the high tide line.  In June, it was usually an hour to two to rake the seaweed and bury it.  Beach goers came to the beach around 10:30am or so, leaving time to "clean the beach."  It is here that I was first introduced to an eelgrass wrack.  For some reason, as it dried in heat, it attracted flies and "no see ums" or gnats – biting flies.  For some reason, eelgrass wrack attracted the most flies.  When touched, you could see the flies jump.  So, eelgrass really didn't interfere with swimming at least for the early part of the summer.  However, by mid-August, I dreaded easterly winds, especially after a storm.  Then, the eelgrass was thick and at high tide no place to bury it (this beach was indented and a place that naturally collected a seaweed wrack).  On several occasions, we just raked the seaweed (eelgrass) back into the water.  It is then that swimmers complained that there was so much eelgrass in the water that it was like "swimming in corn flakes."  The wrack on the beach attracted flies – complaints poured in.  This job was for one season only.  I guessed that the eelgrass was coming from the eelgrass flats along the northern edge of Cedar Island at the mouth of the Hammonasset River – that was the closest source but no way to determine the exact source.


The Cycle of Eelgrass – 1900's   


It was at a family outing many years ago that the subject of eelgrass came up.  I don't recall why but I do recall the reaction.  My wife's grandmother, Evelyn Nalchajian, had vivid memories of eelgrass from the 1920's.  She had vivid memories of the "eelgrass problem."  This increased growth of eelgrass was to confront the public's use of cooler water during the intense heat waves of the 1900's.  Eelgrass coverage increased as interest (public policy demands) increased for more beach/bathing opportunities.  This put more beach use in conflict with eelgrass.  Revere Beach in Revere, MA was first opened in 1895.  This beach, just north of Boston, reopened as a public beach in 1895 and a state public beach in 1925.  Mrs. Nalchajian insisted its first and true name was "crescent beach."  She recalls that on many mornings horse teams would scrape the eelgrass off the beach as it was, at times, more than a foot high (likely after a storm, T. Visel).  The opening in 1895 occurred before the great heat wave of 1896 and online reports mention tens of thousands of people came to the beach to escape it.  Eelgrass was a problem as that "it attracted flies" and was considered a nuisance (personal communications, T. Visel, 1980's).  A photograph from the Arthur Goss 1912 photograph series (online) clearly shows an immense seaweed wrack "Revere Beach Rests."  (This account also appears in IMEP #80 Part 1, posted December 16, 2020, The Blue Crab Forum^TM).  A 1909 picture of "Revere Beach Swimmers" from the Nathaniel L. Stebbins' photographic collection details an immense seaweed wrack – See Historic New England, Stebbins' negative #19545.


The impact upon beach use (large growths of eelgrass) is rarely mentioned by researchers today.  It might be because eelgrass is suffering from sulfide discharges in high heat – it is at a low point of abundance.  In the cooler and storm-filled 1950s and 1960s, eelgrass is mentioned as causing stagnation.  Shellfishermen felt the eelgrass growths in the Niantic River were causing stagnation (think reduced flushing, T. Visel) and efforts to restore tidal exchange utilized explosives to clear a channel for tidal exchange (See US Army Corps of Engineers, 1997, The Environmental Effects of Underwater Explosions) (Ludwig, M., 1977, Environmental Assessment of The Use of Explosives to Remove Eelgrass – Niantic River, CT) (Department of Defense Materials Research Laboratories, Commonwealth of Australia, 1980, pp. 3-5, The Effects of Underwater Explosions on Marine Life). 


David Belding, who wrote several state of Massachusetts shellfish industry reports in the early 1900's, mentioned negative eelgrass impacts to its clam fisheries (1905 to 1920).


Other shellfish researchers mention eelgrass reducing bay scallop meat size (eye) and suffocating quahog (hard clam) beds.  But direct suffocation is the least of the concern around eelgrass – its role in marine composting by bacteria that produce sulfides or ammonia has been often missed and is far more significant (my view, T. Visel).  


A deepening marine compost is the result of organic matter (land or sea) undergoing bacterial digestion in warm sulfate-rich, oxygen-poor shallow (and often poorly flushed) seawater.  It is here that a black (sometimes a blue tint) compost purges ammonia in such high quantities it is toxic to marine organisms.  The chemistry of this marine compost is so toxic it kills scallop larvae upon contact.  The toxin attributes is from a blue green algae toxin to many organisms who consume it.  It is a composting organism that thrives in nutrient-rich waters – lyngbya, a cyanobacterium.  It lives in high pH conditions assisted by ammonia – a compost bacterial discharge.  Toxic blooms frequently start near or over eelgrass/marine composts.  High ammonia levels signal a marine compost chemistry – bacterial break downs of plant tissue, that eelgrass over time helped collect.  This should be a great concern as much has been published about a warming planet – additional heat can turn eelgrass composts into potential toxic substance-producing regions.     



The Dangers of Marine Compost – Chemistry 


One of the ways that media has been able to confuse cause and effect in public perception has been the creation of new terms – nowhere has this been more successful than the term "cultural eutrophication" – the premature habitat aging process accelerated by human pollution or human coastal (development) activities.  The declines and reported negative values of estuarine health are most often directly linked to some sort of human activity and now as a culture – that is environmentally inherently negative.  This approach is so biased and at times and so extreme it fails most scientific analysis – as it offers no control trials free of human contact over time.  It does not include climate change or cycles, it has no natural history but portrays a moment in geologic time.  It is a concept not a scientific fact.  This concept tends to draw conclusions from any coastal development to declines in fish and shellfish at or during the same time period.  The problem is that some fisheries have rebounded or increased in areas of coastal development – such as the surge in Connecticut's blue crab post-1998.


The connection to human development was so broad based its weakness can be easily seen in increases in some species with heat with or without development.  Connecticut has seen a huge spike in blue crabs between 2006 to 2012, black sea bass has increased to a point they are beginning to stunt (reach sexual maturity at shorter lengths) and Maine lobster production has increased from 30 million lbs to 132 million lbs in the 2000's.  If this argument is now reversed then coastal development was good for these species?  Oyster setting grew stronger in New England as waters warmed in the 1990's even with coastal structures?  You can quickly see the errors in this conclusion but it is often found in many coastal studies.  Eelgrass responds to climate change with or without human impacts.  These changes are often claimed as new or novel when in several instances it is only a repetition of previous events.  Some may term this a "natural" resource history.  Resource natural history means different things to different people. 


For lack of a better term, I call it "recycled as new science" a restating or reinvention of previous terminology – hunting or fishing for example becomes "provision services" a link to the fact that hunting and fishing can and does provide food.  A review of the literature has become "meta analysis" and abstract as word "smithing."  A bias is often found in grant supported  recent scientific literature, a complaint that even has been raised in the scientific community itself (See 2016 JSR article, Vol 35, #1 "Debasing The Currency of Science").  Nowhere would "new" science be utilized than in building a culture of importance surrounding eelgrass – as an important habitat type with numerous "environmental services."  A review of how eelgrass became such an important environmental indicator is worthy of discussion (my view, T. Visel).


The amount of funding made available for eelgrass study was dependent upon its elevation as first a species of concern – an estuary health indicator that could provide a basis of regulatory authority.  It was in a way of Trojan Horse, an envelope that wrapped around it the real intent of the Clean Water Act revisions transitioning into Submerged Aquatic Vegetation estuary policy as a way to regulate nitrogen.  A negative nitrogen aspect to shallow water clarity is from algal blooms.  This grant funding was subject to confirming the importance of eelgrass connected to nitrogen public policy outcomes.  As a factor of this significance is the absence of any historical reference to when eelgrass reviews were mixed at best and many instances were considered habitat negative regarding eelgrass monocultures over extended periods of time.


As for "The Funding Effect" the "science" is subject to a type of bias evident in some medical research (See Sheldon Krimsky School of Medicine Tufts University of Boston, MA 2005) – that is very evident in some eelgrass/nitrogen research.  This eelgrass positive research findings nearly always mirrors the "guidance" information in highly structured request for proposals (RFP).  If often follows grantor expectations of grantee research areas.  Most of the research (although gives an appearance of independence) is perhaps compromised by expectations of further grants.  This is easily seen in eelgrass research, rarely if ever receives a negative mention so prevalent in the 1950's and 1960's.  Much of the negative historical eelgrass impacts to shellfish are missing today from recent reports.  Many eelgrass habitat histories start from the 1980's. 


We may need to expand the concept of peer reviews to a structured legislative response that includes natural history and broader review of scientific published articles.  (My early work with the University of Massachusetts Cooperative Extension had me come face to face with that concept – regulatory agencies funding education and developing research that then supported regulatory responses to it. I recall several conversations with Robert Light, then UMASS Cooperative Extension Associate Director at the time about this topic).


The eelgrass research is perhaps compromised by a contractor/client consulting relationship (conflict of interest) that delivers research that once used to be agency housed.  The outsourcing of "science" outside of civil service both insulates the funding agency and develops a relationship of future funding potential.  Many federal agencies published this type of research, which often included a broad disclaimer stating that it is not the official position of said agency, etc., but is printed on agency mastheads with agency publication numbers and containing agency logos.  


Such disclaimers often appear under federal agency logos or mast heads.  One June 2014 disclaimer for Improving Eelgrass (Zostera marina) Restoration, Conservation, and Protection contains this on pg. 2:


"This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States... The views and opinions of authors expressed here in do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof."


The problem is that these types of reports later appear as reference or citations but readers of other works rarely know about the presence of disclaimers but rely on agency representations or federal recognition.


Something similar happened decades ago with salt marsh research.  To prevent filling and dredging of salt marsh habitat numerous studies were untaken to counter beliefs and values that considered these habitats as worthless and also disease causing.  John M. Teal in a Fish and Wildlife Service report titled "The Ecology of Regulatory Flooded Salt Marshes of New England – A Community Profile (1986)," US Fish and Wildlife Service, Biology Report 86 (7.4) mentions a fine line of science and a growing concern of research guided by grants.  The preface contains this section:


"Note his comment on the inadvisability of trading "our credibility for political advantage."  It is all too early for a scientist believing (he) has achieved a new way of understanding some natural phenomenon to promote his idea for some management purpose.  This has certainly happened in relation to salt marshes."


In The Funding Effect in Science and its Implications for the Judiciary Sheldon Krimsky (2005) on page 59 has this segment.


"One Yale University research team pooled all of the studies available in a type of meta analysis on the impacts of financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research.  Based on eleven independent studies, the research team determined that "strong and consistent evidence shows that industry sponsored research tends to draw pro industry conclusions."


And further: 


"The data from the studies tells a convincing story that commercial affiliation of researchers has a biasing effect – not simply on each investigator but also on the general population of investigators.  It imposes a kind of evolutionary pressure that steers the research toward the interest of the sponsors." 


This helps explain the absence of negative eelgrass composting chemistry or the suffocation of oysters, clams, blue mussels, and food limitations to bay scallops from eelgrass in the most current eelgrass literature.  The return of eelgrass to many New England estuaries in the 1950's and 1960's was not met with delight but often distain.  This is an excerpt from a State of Massachusetts marine bulletin series (several of which mention the "eelgrass problem") funded by the Department of Natural Resources – Division of Marine Fisheries – Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1968) titled "A Study of the Resources of The Westport River" Frederick C. Wilbur Jr. Director, Division of Marine Fisheries – pg. 43 contains this section under Eelgrass:


"Although eelgrass is favorable to the setting of juvenile scallops it has been noted that mature scallops growing amidst eelgrass tend to be smaller in size than those growing in adjacent open areas where the current is unimpeded and the scallops receive a constant new food supply detriment to shellfisheries."   


Detriment to shellfisheries also occurs when deal eel grass accumulates in dense mats and smothers beds of shellfish.  Because of the increasing growth of eelgrass on shellfish beds, considerable research is presently being conducted to find an effective method of control" pg 44.


And many states did look into reducing eelgrass growth as did Canada but those citations do not appear in today's almost totally positive accounts of eelgrass assisting shellfish – when in actual fact the opposite is often true.  Reporting negative accounts would go against the current positive message so they were forgotten.  This is a type of science/research misconduct called "citation amnesia."  Assisting in this lost portrayal of eelgrass is that the shellfisheries who once reported on eelgrass concern no longer existed.  While eelgrass suffocated shellfish beds, a much larger negative impact can be found in its composting chemistry in shallow waters.  This negative impact is made worse by global warming and the increase of sulfate bacterial metabolism.  This is noticed in shallow bays subject to high heat and non-limiting amounts of sulfate dissolved in seawater.  This use of sulfate as an oxygen acceptor releases deadly sulfide.



The Compost Soils of Eelgrass and Habitat Succession 


Eelgrass, like most submerged aquatic vegetation, lives along coastal margins – its habitats also exist in areas, which contain shellfish and finfish.  As such they share habitat space within biological parameters of light, nutrient level and temperature.  They are from their proximity to land subject to similar environmental conditions necessary for many fisheries.  It was these shallow waters that are the most biologically significant that obtain carbon and nitrogen from land (open ocean waters are generally "nitrogen poor" and often labeled "biological deserts" from low productivity – overall poor in fisheries) shallow near coastal areas are rich in shellfish that now feed upon algae nourished by abundant nitrogen compounds.  It is how those nitrogen and sulfate compounds react in high heat that governs species dominance and the expansion and contraction of eelgrass meadows.


In the 1920's at the end of multi-decade warm cycle as icebergs invaded Southern Atlantic shipping lanes, eelgrass had a widespread die-off termed the "wasting disease" which is a slime mold infection.  It was a signal event marking the end of habitat succession period since the late 1880's.  As the eelgrass die off was worldwide (beginning in 1898) no specific action could be applied to explain this loss except that it signaled the end of a long period of eelgrass habitat expansion.  It was now in decline.  The ability of eelgrass to expand into a greater habitat coverage and in the process transition its retreat to different habitat types by the accumulation or organic matter (marine compost) did not go unnoticed.


A study of Norway's North Sea habitats (2019) was published (June 24, (3), pg.  410-434, titled "Distribution, Structure and Function of Nordic Eelgrass," Frontiers Marine Science, April 2019) that included observations and measurements on this aspect.  In high heat the habitat successive characteristics come into view and its role in enhancing anoxia and localized anoxic events.  Reduced depths narrowed hydraulic capacity the exchange of cooler generally richer oxygenated waters.  This is also termed flushing capacity – retained (slower) moving waters are most vulnerable to thermal hydrogen sulfide generation related to the sulfur – sapropel cycle.  Anoxic events and the generation of hydrogen sulfide in sulfur bacteria biological cycles of plant tissue have been studied for about a century.  See "Occurrence and Activity of Bacteria In Marine Sediments – Claude E. Zobell, Scripps Institution of Oceanography – University of California (1939).


In a few months, researchers from Australia, Norway and Denmark will examine to the impacts of terrestrial organic matter in high heat upon estuarine habitat quality.  It has also signaled a review of the Saprobien System developed in 1909 for organic high heat digestion in Europe's rivers (See Deninger and Frigstad (2019), Re-Evaluating The Role Of Organic Matter Sources For Coastal Eutrophication, Oligotrophication And Ecosystem Health edited by Marianne Holmer).  Norway's study of fjords and the accumulation of black muds was documented by Kaare Munster Strom, University of Oslo in 1938 (See Recent Marine Sediments: A Symposium edited by Parker D. Trask, US Geological Survey, 1955, 736 pages).  Strom's research focused upon areas with restricted tidal exchange and the gathering marine composts, Norway's coastal fjords, noting the tendency of fjords with tidal restrictions to become stagnant and contain a black mud rich in hydrogen sulfide.  Strom also describes nearly a century ago, which is today referred to as the sulfide deadline and toxic conditions in marine soil then called sediments.  From Strom (1938) reissued in 1955, page 361 "Land-locked Waters and Black Muds" has this segment (my comments, T. Visel):


"The biological effects of stagnation are mainly a sterilization of the bottom sediments and the open waters from a certain depth (Sulfide deadline, T. Visel) downward.  If a total renewal of the bottom waters occurs (now called "overturn," T. Visel), those containing hydrogen sulphide are sometimes lifted to the surface and cause a catastrophic death of the fauna (rotten egg – fish kill, T. Visel) that normally lives in the upper waters.  In localities with nearly fresh surface waters, a saltwater fauna may have a precarious existence between the fresh waters of the sulface and the poisoned waters (high in hydrogen sulfide, T. Visel) of the deep." 


And further (same page):


"Sounds with two outlets easily become stagnant, as in them there are relatively feeble reaction currents set up by the tides.  Extreme stagnation in bottom waters is found in some fjords with salt surface waters but with little salinity difference between surface and bottom."


Parker D. Trask mentions iron sulfide although the first study was done twelve years earlier by researchers in the 1920's (Recent Marine Sediments, 1955).  These studies (1926) mentioned that climate and energy levels influenced habitat conditions close to the continent and had focused upon organic matter.  This was known as the Treatise on Sedimentation was first printed in 1926.  Trask highlights the current questions about marine sediments on page 4 of his preface To Recent Marine Sediments, Washington, DC, July 27, 1939:


"The organic constituents form an essential through small part of sediments.  This organic matter offers many problems, some of which are the conditions of accumulation: changes that take place after sediments are deposited, the chemical composition of organic matter, the variations in the nitrogen and oxygen content of the organic matter under different conditions; the modes of formation of reduced sediments, of iron sulphide, and of dark-colored deposits that ultimately may become black shales, the effect of bacteria; the relation of texture to organic content and the origin of petroleum."


Many of these marine compost questions/"problems" remain today – my view, Tim Visel. 

Marine Compost Salt Marsh Peat Sinks in High Heat

Climate Change and Public Opinion – The Mosquito Habitat War in Greenwich CT 1901-1914

For those interested in climate change and diseases of the human race within habitat vectors might want to review this case.  Climate Change and Public Opinion, a 2008 report (revised in IMEP #16, posted May 29, 2014), looks at almost a full century of public policy changes as we today value coastal habitats.  The Greenwich Connecticut Mosquito Habitat war traces the desperate attempts of State and Greenwich citizens to quell a huge outbreak of Malaria blood parasites that neared 1,000 cases in 1911.  As panic broke out state and local health agencies allowed the filling (some under emergency orders) of Greenwich coastal ponds within one mile of the coastline.  Many subtidal salt ponds and nearly all salt marshes were filled as swarms of vicious salt pond mosquitos made Greenwich residents head for shelter in fear at dusk.  Recently discovered papers from Guilford detail efforts in the 1950s, 1960's and early 1970's of State officials discussed way of changing previous public opinion about filling them towards salt marshes conservation.  As the Great Heat ended by 1938 Malaria outbreaks were few and by 1942 gone with the return of colder temperatures.  A rare memo written by Ann Conover of Guilford is referenced and the early foundation of salt marshes as valued habitats detailed in the late 1950s to 1960s (See IMEP #16: Mosquito War Claims Connecticut Marshes 1901-1915).


In the late 1950's, the State of Connecticut desired to change the public's perception of salt marshes as dangerous disease filled habitats.  In an April 17, 1958 letter, Arroll L. Larson of the Connecticut Board of Fisheries and Game wrote to Paul Galtsoff at the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (then part of the Fish and Wildlife Service) asking for help in saving Connecticut's salt marshes, which includes this first sentence:


"Dear Dr. Galtsoff – Here in Connecticut we are fighting the seemingly loosing battle of saving our tidal marshes." 


This effort to save the marshes came after a period of 64 years as in 1894 Connecticut had passed regulations to drain and or fill salt marshes to kill mosquitoes by eliminating habitat (Connecticut had Malaria outbreaks during this period of extreme heat in the 1890s).  A great description of this change of public policy can be found in a David Casagrande (Yale University report) The Full Circle: A Historical Context for Urban Salt Marsh Restoration (1997).  The late 1950s were known to have cold long winters – a negative NAO and Malaria outbreaks had disappeared by 1938 along Connecticut's shore as the climate then turned colder.  That climate feature ended in 1972 as heat returned to New England.  So would mosquito disease.


Climate Change and Public Opinion was first written for the EPA – DEEP Long Island Sound Study in 2008 and released as a regional habitat newsletter in 2014.  It is available free to all interested (See IMEP #16: Mosquito War Claims Connecticut Marshes 1901 to 1915, posted May 29, 2014, The Blue Crab Forum™ Eeling, Oystering and Fishing thread).  It looks at how gathered composts salt marshes responded to decades of high heat.


Salt Marsh Habitats Fail in High Heat - 1898 


One of the perplexing habitat events was the 1898-99 die off of Southern New England lobsters was followed by the immense New England oysters sets at the same time.  The 1899 oyster set was the set of the century –oysters it seemed were everywhere as reports from oyster literature are filled with pictures of set on shell – sometimes even on crockery – clay tiles and bricks.  Brick waste actually became a great setting substrate slightly porous oysters seemed to be able to "latch on" the best.  Bay scallop shells had been a cultch of choice as the first oyster grounds became cultivated but in the 1890's bay scallop shells became scarce.  As oyster planters were thrilled with the oyster sets inshore lobster fishers searched for any lobsters – the heat had been harsh to them (bay scallops as well) and the last large quahog beds – north east of Nantucket gave out a decade later.  Soft shell clams, oysters and blue crabs now dominated the shallows, where bay scallops, lobsters and quahogs had been before.  The decrease of cold water species and those that prefer warmer temperature would increase and be reflected in small boat fishery landings (US Fish & Wildlife Service Catch Statistics).   


But the harvest of salt hay soon declined.  Salt marsh peat became soft and soupy.  To keep horse teams from sinking into the peat, horses were equipped with a snow shoe like "hay shoe" horse shoe.  These wide wood shoes were to provide a greater surface area (on display at the Farm Museum building at the Durham Fair) but with ditching and soft peat conditions, Connecticut's salt hay crop was abandoned and production declined (See CT Agriculture Experiment Station reports).  New Haven Agriculture researchers were dismayed by this lost crop but in conversations with Charles Beebe of Madison in the early 1970s, Guilford farmers gave up because the marshes had become so soft.  These salt marshes, in many ways, were marine composts with a peat-turf cover.


It was the agriculture community who first detailed the wasting of ammonia in wet hot terrestrial composts.  Sealed from oxygen anaerobic bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide the rotten egg smell and excess nitrogen as a form of ammonia.  Ammonia is described as a "sweet smell."  A century ago in southern states marine compost was a soil fertilizer (called pluff or plough mud) and when harvested produced similar smells.


This loose marine compost is found in the Carolinas and the State of South Carolina issues "pluff mud warnings" to marsh visitors unaware of the danger of sinking into it (Hilton Head rescue personnel are equipped with special shoes similar to snow shoes – See The Island Packet – May 11, 2022 Sarah Claire McDonald – "Pluff Mud In The South Carolina Low Country Can Be Dangerous).  In New England and Canada, farmers harvested this marine compost for similar soil enrichment, called mussel or harbor mud.  In 2017 Suzannah Smith Miles – responds to questions about Pluff Mud – "The name originated in the early 1800s when coastal planters began using the nutrient rich substance as a fertilizer and would plow (then spelled plough) it into the fields."


And further:


"The mud is a mix of algae, decaying animal and plant matter and sediment.  Bacterial detritivores which feed on the dead and decomposing organic matter live within it, respiring without oxygen in a process that removes sulfate from the water and releases hydrogen sulfide into the mud.  Thus, the "rotten egg" smell."


(Charleston – The City Magazine – October 2017 "Pluff Mud").
Farmers well equated with terrestrial composts recognized its potential soil nourishment (Sapropel is a valuable international soil amendment product).  In northern states Agriculture Experiment Stations tested samples of harbor mud for nitrogen content.


An 1885 Maine Agriculture Experiment Station report titled "Harbor Mud" (pg 35) has this section:


"This station (Maine Experiment Station was sent a sample by Fred Atwood of Winterport (Maine) the barrel of mud was received several weeks before being sampled and when it was opened it emitted a strong odor of ammonia." 


Heat Brings Marine Soil Chemistry Change for Eelgrass 


Having worked for two Cooperative Extension Services, and for a short time an Agriculture Experiment Station at three different Land Grant Universities I was amazed at the research and educational programs available for home gardeners.  Don't forget "to get your soil pH tested" which was part of my Cooperative Extension experience since 1967.  When I was in the Shoreline 4-H Club (1967) until 1990, UCONN Cooperative Extension soil testing was an annual spring message.  Few gardeners today will reply that they have not heard this soil message.


Information on soil, types, soil pore space, beneficial soil bacteria, pH, fertilizer information and later when I left Cooperative Extension employment for work on Connecticut's FFA –Agriculture Education aquaculture efforts new "Master Gardeners" programs were available to the public and were important to Cooperative Extension Systems.  It certainly was not the same for future farmers of the sea – they struggled with incomplete soil information, an absence of habitat succession laws, no knowledge of acid or alkaline soils or impact of soil cation exchange capacity (CEC) conditions upon sea life.  In many instances, nearly none of the basis agricultural cultivation principles carried over to the sea except perhaps for predator control.  


The oyster industry had learned the hard way about the monoculture of oyster beds – soon had oyster predators, oyster drills and starfish in larger numbers in or near cultivated beds.  Genetics also carried over as "spawner" transplants of oysters from different localities were planted to improve local sets.  Instead the knowledge of shellfish and finfish habitats would languish for decades – in fact the most habitat information and knowledge were from the fin and shellfishers, themselves.  


Observations of fishers provided the most useful information – the visual records of habitat observations and the statistics for fish catches.  Some of the first soil cultivation experiments were in fact carried on by farmers who had teams of oxen and horse drawn plows.  Bridgeport Connecticut has the distinction of being one the first communities to experiment with marine soil plows – local soft shell clams set heavily upon beaches after the energy of the 1870's stopped into these recently cultivated marine soils.  Soft shell clam production now soared and clam seeding experiments were well underway in Bridgeport by the 1890s and in Clinton CT in 1900.  It was difficult to miss the soft shells that now set heavily from New Jersey to Chatham Cape Cod.  So also, was the subtidal marine grass known as "eelgrass," the grass that holds eels and important to a winter hand held spear fishery.


Eelgrass like most grasses biological and habitat successional role was to bind loose marine soils and stabilize them much as terrestrial grass after a forest fire.  Instead this energy pathway is represented by strong coastal storms – hurricanes and powerful Northeasters.  As strong storm waves, currents and surges had a role in habitat succession as well, cold sea water is denser and more destructive than warm.  Coastal barriers and inlets during cold and stormy periods tend to breach – allowing coastal energy to cultivate, disturb organic deposits and clean such compost deposits down to sulfide stained "black sands."  


Warm periods was just the opposite, warm water is less dense and the offshore sand bars of the 1870s now moved to the beach – inlets tended to "heal" in the fisheries literature and coastal salt water farms who wanted cheap fertilizer, bait or salted food (salted alewife was a popular bar food – stripped salted or smoked) rushed to unblock closed off salt ponds – in heat and as time passed such closed ponds went "stagnant" and turned black.  This was a natural occurrence and many rivers and streams that obtained large amounts of leaves naturally had sulfide "black waters."  The names of black bay or black cove or just black water river are those areas high in tannins and subject to iron/sulfate reduction.  These areas of iron and sulfate from seawater would eventually create conditions for a shellfish or fish kill.  These conditions were to present themselves during the 1880-1920 periods of huge heat waves and few storms (See Appendix #1: The Blockage and Sand Burial of Mememsha Pond of 1912). 


Into this roughly four decade period eelgrass coverage would extend far up into bays – these hot periods amplify droughts and saline waters could reach up higher into rivers and coves.  To the disappointment of duck hunters the freshwater grass widgeon grass Ruppia maritima its nourishment for ducks including a duck called widgeon and known years ago "Boldpate" today as a species of dabbing duck died off.  It fed largely upon Ruppia and when it disappeared along with these ducks hunters often complained.  This occurred in the 1970's in a Connecticut cove called Mumford Cove, when Ruppia (also called duck weed in some localities) died off and then duck hunting declined (Ken Holloway personal communication, T. Visel 1980's).


Eelgrass would replicate the same growth pattern after the 1870's, by the 1890's most agencies considered eelgrass a nuisance, even a public health hazard.  Thick eelgrass growths, slowed tides, filled in navigation channels, had to be dragged off beaches permitting those who could afford to escape the brutal of the 1890's to reach the water.  During New England heat waves, long narrow cove passages to the sea often stagnated producing the smell of rotten eggs.  The 1930's would see these eelgrass monocultures succumb to fungal disease when that happened Brant starved to death by the thousands.


In an effort to improve duck hunting many US Fish Wildlife Service efforts included projects to impound fresh water on blackish marshes to enhance growth of Ruppia.  Ruppia declined on the east coast as salinities increased in marshes from sudden breaches, inlet breaks along barrier spits.  The influx of sea water would kill Ruppia but greatly increase the eelgrass (Zostera) coverage into the 1960's.             


The eelgrass problem often became severe in the shallows, it was everywhere listed on nautical charts as "eelgrass" or at times just grass.  It some coves it caused sedimentation restricting navigation, it grew so thick at times special propellers were designed to cut through it, (New York) in other areas it covered soft shell and hard shell clams habitats.  Where tides or currents were slow a sticky black and sometimes jelly like substance built up on the bottom, the beginning of sapropel.  It is here that shellfishers noticed how aggressive it (eelgrass) could be destroying shellfish habitat and now creating an eelgrass (Zostera) peat sealing organic matter from oxygen.


In heat, this eelgrass peat fostered the production of ammonia, in cold the production of toxic sulfides.  The bottoms that held few fish or shellfish and once disturbed shed sulfides, a kind of poisonous smoke that sent a "smell" into the water column.  Here next to dead bottoms that produced sulfides the first sapropel formed in or near eelgrass.  When New England fishers went to spear eels in deep holes or cut a hole in the ice they did so over "eelgrass" and near black "dead bottoms."  This is a 1920 account from the American Angler – pg. 498 (My insertions in brackets, T. Visel):


"The eels on the close approach of winter had worked their way up the creeks and marshes, and with the making of the first key nights (usually from a group or ball of eels, T. Visel) and literally buried themselves body and soil in the soft mud bottom.  I soon found that eels were not everywhere on the bottom for to simply put one's spear down and haul them forth.  For it seems eels is particular, if not quite fastidious as to the certain kind of muddy bottom he buries himself in for the winter months.  In fact, he does not seem to like soft and deep, black sticky mud (now thought to be toxic sapropel, T. Visel).  On the contrary, he will generally prefer what is known to fisherman as clean, or "live mud bottom."  It seemed this clean or live bottom is to be found near or along the edges of the channel, and while soft mud, it's constituted of rather a firm mud, and is apt to have patches or a scattering of eelgrass grow on it.  In such eelgrass bottom, where the ebb and flood of tide sweeps over it, the eel delights to bury or bed, and there while in a state of semi hibernation he waxes fat and sleek the winter long while snow and ice deeply coat the surface of the waters above him."  (The American Angler, Volume 1920, pg. 498-500, "We Go's A-Eelin" Through The Ice For The Slippery One by Will R. McDonnel.)   


And so at the end of great heat, it is the eelgrass next to dead bottoms that gave off sulfides kept larger predators away from the soft tissue unprotected eels.  Eels dug out depressions among the eelgrass roots because enough oxygen was available in this soil to keep them alive – they could survive in this low oxygen cold sulfide environment.  Only a few organisms can live in eelgrass/sapropel (peat) in winter as ice restricts oxygen exchange it is these bottom that purge deadly sulfides.  The eel of our coast Anquilla rostrata, lives in an acidic eelgrass peat (it secretes an ample mucous layer for protection against sulfuric acid) and can absorbed oxygen through their skin, giving a huge advantage by hibernating next to eelgrass roots.  When fishers sought out to spear eels they headed to "eelgrass" and areas close to dead bottoms.  Eels could not live in sapropel because it contained little oxygen and toxic sulfides.  If winters were long, sulfide levels could rise and kill eels, terrapin turtles, blue crabs and even fish in salt ponds, i.e. a winter kill under eelgrass growths.  In winter's cold and summer's heat eelgrass /sapropel became deadly places and eelgrass could provide some life support to various species as well as become a toxic habitat that supported the sulfur cycle.  The term eelgrass should have been a clue to its habitat type, beneficial if ample/flows existed – reduce the flows (energy) and increase the heat eelgrass become a bacterial and chemical battlefield.  When the EPA decided to go "all in" for promoting eelgrass as an important if not critical habitat type it was one that fishers knew in heat marked the edge of dead or toxic lifeless bottoms a century ago.


Sulfate-reducing bacteria, including the Desulfovibrio series or Vibrio for short, thrive in heat.  Perhaps the most infamous recognizable Vibrio bacteria is Vibrio cholerae or shortened to cholera) lives below eelgrass.  It is here in an eelgrass gathered compost that organic matter feeds bacterial that utilize sulfate for oxygen and create sulfide deadlines.  Similar to turn of the century studies that found terrestrial grasses held dense cultures of bacteria below them some research exists indentifying marine composts (soils) as bacteria rich (see Are We Fooling Ourselves??  Eelgrass and Subaqueous Soils As A Refuge for Fecal Indicator Bacteria – Jessie Dyer URI 2009).  Other research is examining bacteria below eelgrass and reports mention the vibrio species and several fungi.  The "wasting disease" of the 1930's was found to be connected to the marine compost slime mold - fungus, Labyrinthula zosterae.  As temperatures dropped in the 1920s, it is thought that this favored the growth of fungus while heat increased bacteria.  Similar attributes have been associated with terrestrial compost science.  Cooler composting temperatures often favor the growth of fungus.


Eelgrass on the Beach 


Daily walks on Hammonasset Beach I soon noticed this ribbon like plant – it formed a thin wrack along the high tide line.  After a storm, it was a different matter and, from time to time, it was a deposit of green fertilizer and my father made short work of this natural fertilizer free of charge and it would quickly go into our garden.  One of things I noticed that eelgrass would not rot or crumble quickly – instead it lasted a long time and we used it to mulch our strawberries.  Only later did I learn that researchers had discouraged the use of eelgrass as compost as it "would not rot" from its high silicon leaf content.  Severe storms left a wrack of eelgrass with roots still attached.  In our area of Connecticut's coast we had more kelp/cobble stone than eelgrass in winter, which was dense at the mouth of the Hammonasset River.  Kelp would come up along the beach but it was often attached to cobble stones that had patches we could see between reefs at low tide when the waters were clear.  Only the strongest of storms was able to cast up kelp onto the beach which if close to Pent Road also ended up in the garden.  There is a huge depression era mural in the Madison Post Office gathering seaweed at storm, which shows Madison farmers (formerly part of Guilford) harvesting seaweed with pitch forks and oxen carts.


In the high energy coast of Madison, Clinton and Guilford, it was kelp cobblestone that was productive habitats for winter flounder, small black fish, and lobsters.  The kelp formed a reef complex, slowed currents but because of its high energy area cobblestones did not move.  Eelgrass needed lower energy environments so when the energy levels change it is natural to see eelgrass expand and then retract.  In the lower Hammonasset River eelgrass could be found, and by 1974 it lived on the north side of Cedar Island in a thick meadow.  When we oystered in the lower Hammonasset River, it was a nuisance; if we went off the oysters, the dredge quickly filled with a loose mud eelgrass mixture.  It (eelgrass) often filled our hand hauled oyster dredge and stopped our skiff.  A 1983 National Fisherman™ article shows our Brockway Skiff with it but by 1983 the eelgrass had started to disappear, as more and more black mayonnaise covered seed oysters.  What was once a nuisance now was a problem, eelgrass plants were brown and slippery, they looked sick.  It was also hot.


When I met John Hammond on Cape Cod, I had learned more about climate change and eelgrass – the impacts of temperature and energy upon shallow water habitats.  Those meetings and references appear in many of my habitat reports but the overriding message that at the end of a two decade period 1960 to 1980 period eelgrass had destroyed many of the shellfish habitats on the Cape, he described as "the eelgrass problem."  The eelgrass problem was similar after the four decade period 1880 to 1920 (this is the period in which Mr. Hammond wanted me to look at weather and fish catch statistics) eelgrass was abundant and also a nuisance – it filled bays and was destroying shellfish habitat – in the 1940's and 1950's strong storms had reduced eelgrass the water being colder and the great sets of quahogs had occurred.  As the cold and storms faded eelgrass over ran these shellfish beds and suffocated them.  One of the items Mr. Hammond impressed upon me was the study the sulfur cycle of soil as he felt it was most important to the understanding of shallow water habitats.  He was somewhat discouraged by my admission that my FIT and URI class work did not cover the sulfur cycle – and one meeting consisted of him throwing down a chapter from a textbook on the sulfur cycle "learn it" as he tossed it on a table.


As he described the efforts to eradicate eelgrass as it overwhelmed shellfish habitats, grew thick slowed tides and trapped organics as a rising layer of eelgrass peat (found in State of Massachusetts shellfish reports from the 1920s and 1960s.)  In fact, shellfishers grew to despise eelgrass as its ability to trap organics had turned productive shellfish areas into black sour and smelly bottoms or a marine compost – containing marine fungus.


The is the compost chemistry that is missing from nearly all recent eelgrass reports – what happens to the organic matter under eelgrass in heat and then in cold.  Most terrestrial composting mention fungi as saprophytes – those organisms that live off the dead.  Many articles describe the fungal communities that exist in land composts, some tolerant even of high heat.  When it came to composts under eelgrass however little of that chemistry carried into explanations of eelgrass wasting disease of the 1930's.  The clean and green eelgrass of healthy plants in soil with little compost (mostly sand) or the "brown and furry" eelgrass of soft compost that often smelled of sulfide.  Sulfide kills eelgrass sometimes weakening it so other "opportunistic" pathogens can now attack it.  This fits (almost precisely) the impacts of colder water and storms that cultivate (think compost turning) sandy soils – great for eelgrass or the poor stagnant soft compost that purge ammonia and sulfide.  As the heat returned to New England in the late 1970s eelgrass over high organic content "composts" started to die – from slime mold fungus and sulfide root decay mentioned as "black layer disease" in terrestrial peat.


What I had noticed in the 1970's was happening it the 1980's on Cape Cod every storm it seemed sent a wrack of eelgrass onto the beaches and into the salt marshes – as most of these plants still had some root tissue attached to them – at the time I was unaware of the soil chemistry that damaged its root tissue.  Eelgrass was high in silicon which caused it not to be broken down quickly by oxygen bacteria.  The high silicon content did not support combustion and soon made it a packing material in ice houses and cold storage facilities.  Federal and state reports soon mentioned the good insulating properties of dried eelgrass.  Before ice houses used sawdust but when wet that would oxidize and produce heat (and sometimes fire) the winter compost steam contrary to ice house function.  The ice industry went to report ice "cold" storage designs as reported in this 1905 report from Canada.           

35th Annual Report 1905 of the Report of Marine and Fisheries – Ottawa Printed by order of Parliament

Report of the Deputy Minister Sessional Paper No. 22

The Canso Cold Storage Campaign (bait) plant has all these – and the result is something unique in cold storage plants.


"The insulation seems to be well nigh (near) perfect.  Six (inch) thickness of matched spruce boards, nine (inch) thickness of heavy insulation paper, a two inch air space, and six inches of eelgrass surrounded rooms, while the first floor has between 12 inch joist 25 tons of eelgrass and the second floor about 20 tons. About 60 tons of washed and dried eelgrass were used in the insulating and while the employment of it was somewhat of an experiment, its value as insulator has been finally proved.  Its non inflammable qualities add to its value for the purpose."  


In time the insulation properties would be known as "Cabots Quilt" and became the first paper backed insulation in homes.   



The NAO and Storm Intensity/Frequency 


The transitions from a long period of warmth with a stable positive phase to a negative phase one allows cold polar air (the polar vortex was detailed by Hurd Willet in 1954) to sink far to the south and collide with the sub tropical warm air jet stream.  This allows the frequency and strength of coastal storms to increase.  Cold polar air hitting warm rising air over the gulf stream creates this energy as these air masses produce stronger storms – and for New England summer hurricanes and in winter the Northeaster's.  It is not like a switch – it takes time for the impacts of energy and temperature to reverse fisheries habitats.  This is why John Hammond was keeping records of wind direction, duration and velocity, noting not only changes in marine soils on the Cape- Chatham Monomoy and the resulting clam sets.  In times of heat 1880 to 1920, Chatham was a leading producer of the softshell clam, in times of cold and energy the bay scallop fisheries flourished.  In times of eelgrass abundance, clam and scallop habitat quality actually declined and not increased – these observations can be found in federal and state reports.  


The change in energy and temperature would greatly influence inshore shellfisheries.  A decade before I came to the Cape shellfish areas that were closed collected black mayonnaise (a compost sapropel) often with a suffocating eelgrass crust.  It was now warming in New England and deep organic deposits with or without eelgrass started to smell of sulfide.  It would die off again as compost chemistry changed with sulfate bacteria metabolism as it had a century before.  Many areas held a black soft iron sulfide organic ooze – toxic to plants. 


We need to review climate factors and impacts upon coastal shallow water habitats - my view, Tim Visel.

Appendix #1

The Blockage and Sand Burial of Menemsha Pond Martha's Vineyard of 1912

Excerpt from Irving Field US Fish Commission Bulletin Vol 29, 1911

Pg. 215 (Note Agency was often a term for Nature – T. Visel)

Inanimate Destructive Forces

• The Blue Mussel –

"A slight change of current may cause a deposition of sand over the beds which maybe acres in extent and smother the mussels out of existence.  Some years ago such a wholesale extinction by this agency (Nature – T. Visel) took place in Menemsha Pond, Martha's Vineyard, MA.  The bed a photograph of which was published in a previous paper of the author (Field) 1911, but when visited in July 1912 nothing but a barren flat of white sand was visible at low tide.  Investigators revealed the presence of the decaying shellfish about 4 inches below the surface."  (Field Irving, The Food Value of Sea Mussel Bulletin, US Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. 29, 1911)

[IMEP #147 Part 2: Observations of Eelgrass in Heat Temperatures]

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Fishing, Eeling & Oystering / IMEP #147 Part 2: Observations...

Last post by BlueChip - January 08, 2025, 08:07:39 PM

IMEP #147 Part 2: Observations of Eelgrass in Heat Temperatures
How Eelgrass Soils Can Change
"Understanding Science Through History"
Marine Peat and Composting Habitats
Eelgrass Habitats and Sulfur Toxicity
The Bacteria of Terrestrial and Aquatic Soils
Viewpoint of Tim Visel - no other agency or organization
Thank you, The Blue Crab ForumTM for posting these Habitat History and Environment Conservation reports – 
over 375,000 views to date, This is a delayed report June 2008 – revised to 2013 
Tim Visel retired from The Sound School June 30, 2022�

A Note from Tim Visel
Observations of Eelgrass in Heat Temperatures
It makes a difference if you experience the end of an eelgrass cycle – a soft root peat in shallow water.  It is here that dead clams were found below dying eelgrass roots and stems in Buttermilk Bay, Cape Cod in the summer of 1982.  I was able to watch soft shell clammers, who used water to harvest softshell clams, called "jet clamming" as a stream of water – so much so that you could propel a small skiff or dingy, similar to "jet skis," across a salt pond or bay.  Jet clamming allowed the inspection of what was below dead eelgrass that often was dead soft shell clams.  In shallow water, it was easy to see that eelgrass could choke out clams and what Dr.  David Belding had documented seven decades before – "eelgrass we have seen is fatal to a good clam bed" (See Appendix # 1).
The eelgrass, at this time, was dying off.  It was in hot, mucky bottoms where the worse conditions were found, what I term the "brown and furry" eelgrass.  Walking into these brown and black eelgrass blades, they were soft and the smell of sulfide ever present.  These areas were avoided by jet clammers, of course, as the only live clams had already died and the dead shells (still paired) showed no obvious damage except that they contained mud, not living tissue.  These were the areas often called "dead bottoms" and avoided for the reason described above by clammers.  This was much different from the clean and green eelgrass observed in Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island in 1978.  Here, the eelgrass was "clean and green" and lived in sandy soils.  Here, blades were free of fouling slime and growths.  Decades later at a shellfish conference, someone commented it looked like it "was dipped in peanut butter during a dust storm."  I chuckled to myself as it perfectly described the brown and furry eelgrass I observed on Cape Cod.
The use of water jets (pumps) is a quick but effective way to determine benthic diversity, especially the presence of sulfide-tolerant worms.  Other researchers also experimented with hydraulic survey devices (See A Benthic Sampling Device for Shallow Water by Michael Castagna, VIMS).  While the shellfish industry long ago learned the cultivation aspects of marine soils could increase sets.  But these sands and grit were always stained gray in Buttermilk Bay from the presence of iron sulfides amongst dead clams.  When exposing these old or previous bottoms, always it seemed they were accompanied by the smell of sulfide.  It was in these areas that eelgrass was dying off and sulfide staining was clearly evident, so was the sulfur smell (personal experiences, T. Visel).

It was Dr. Belding who conducted some of the first recorded clam bed cultivation experiments on Cape Cod.  These consisted of regrading or resurfacing of clam flats and, in some cases, redistributing sand and gravel.  In many of these experiments, he recorded increased clam sets compared to non-worked ground.  His 1930 publication was actually conducted a decade before during the "hot term" 1880 to 1920.  Shellfishers had noticed the impacts of new sand, storm-washed sand pushed in fans or "reverse deltas," especially along barrier spits.  This had occurred in the North River region of Massachusetts from the 1898 Portland Gale.  Here, the force of the storm created a new opening to the North River isolating a section of Scituate, changing the salinity reducing a salt hay marsh to a huge soft shell bed within three years. 

A March 8, 1906 Shoreline Times article titled "Successful Clam Culture" reveals this habitat succession from salt marsh to clam flat.

"Professor A.D. Meade, PhD distinguished biologist, a member of the Rhode Island Fish Commission and probably the best authority in the world on shellfish culture having conducted experiments therein for seven years, he has twice inspected these flats.  Speaking of one place that he looked at said "the set there is thick enough to produce 3,000 bushels to the acre.  The main thing is a suitable bottom and the best proof of a suitable bottom is this great abundance where the turf has been sufficiently removed to give them a chance to come in."

The chance here related to reducing pH (seawater is alkaline) and increasing oxygen on the surface peat, which transitioned to a fine sand soil.  Three years before (1903) experiments were underway in Clinton Harbor with "new" sand over existing mud flats with good soft shell clam sets.   

Storms have a history of driving "new sand" over areas that had previous clams, creating a new surface which often sets heavily.  Clammers would occasionally hit the "older" bottom below containing dead clams.  The Clinton Harbor experiments detailed moving sand over existing flats.  This, no doubt, favored oxygen bacteria and out of the zone of sulfate bacteria.  This process would, in time, help eelgrass as well, providing a loose "clean" soil in which to grow.
It was the lack of energy and heat that allowed eelgrass to grow and change marine soil chemistry (See Cultivation of Marine Soils Yankee Magazine, Richard W. Burton, former Director of the Rhode Island Department of Fisheries) - The opposite would be true 50 years later, the 1950's were known for a dramatic increase in powerful storms.  Marine soils were "naturally" cultivated by these storm events.

Reports from some Cape Cod fishers stated that in the 1950's and 1960's bay bottoms were firmer, harder and covered in bivalve shell. Now those same areas were dying and bottoms becoming soft. Small soft-shell clams, it was mentioned by clammers, actually had tried to move, coming out of the bottom (some fishers in other states may have seen this also) due to the bottom becoming toxic (today thought to be sulfide from sulfate bacteria). Some of the interest in cultivation /harvest was certainly a part of this interest but with the 1950s and 1960s it was colder and came more storms? Could the storms just be nature's marine soil aerators? 
 
 I had seen this before in Tom's Creek soon after its bacterial closure to direct shellfish harvesting.  Almost immediately, the leaves began collecting and rotting, turning black and into a jelly that suffocated everything. I was 20 when Yankee Magazine (October, 1974) did an article titled, "Aquaculture and the Man with the Blue Thumb about Richard Burtons soil cultivators. A decade later I sought reprint permission.   "Dear Mr. Visel, Thank you for your letter of February 6th, 1985. We are pleased to grant you permission to reprint "Aquaculture and the Man With the Blue Thumb." The credit line should read: "Reprinted with permission from the October, 1974 issue of Yankee Magazine, published by Yankee Publishing, Inc., Dublin, NH 03444. Thanks for your interest. Sincerely, Judson D. Hale, Sr., Editor."  It described Richard Burton, Brockton high school oceanography teacher and minister in West Bridgewater, who built a soil cultivation device for increasing set capacity for the softshell clam. A caption reads: 

"Rev. Richard Burton, founder of Project Dominion, demonstrates his homemade cultivator. Seawater pumped through the device agitates the surface of an ecologically stagnant clam flat and adds oxygen and nutrients, resulting in a healthy set of clams." 

On Cape Cod, I used to give out copies of this article at my Cape Cod Cooperative Extension workshops (we had so little information about marine soil cultivation back then) and at the few waste water Hyannis Plant meetings I attended. One Hyannis Plant staff member connected that's the same thing we do with the sludge filter systems; "you can't let them sit." The cultivator device used by Mr. Burton was small - a pump, a piece of oil delivery hose (usually orange) and a piece of copper pipe. Basically, the same equipment used on the Cape to jet pump clams (soft shells). In the heat of this time the Hyannis Treatment Sewage Plant operators were in a desperate situation to keep its filter beds alive- had increased aeration but this was blamed for an increase of strong smells in the neighborhood (T. Visel personal observations (1980s). Stagnation was seen as deadly to filter media- and encouraged sulfide formation in them – communications with plant staff then.  (At one meeting, it was announced that nitrate levels were dropping a sign of filter collapse.)
The motivation behind these marine soil cultivation experiments was quite succinct, the flat softshell sets had died-out, quoting from the Yankee Magazine. 

 "As a former government biologist, he (Richard Burton) saw 'billions spent in research' and a vast amount of knowledge accumulated, 'but it bothered me that at the end of a year you'd think over what you accomplished – and you learned a lot – but you couldn't point to one solitary clam or oyster that was there because you helped it get there." and in the summer of 1972 he created a proposal called the New England Plan hoping to form a cooperative project for the New England's marine fishing community and got approval from Scituate (no funds) to begin aquaculture soil cultivation experiments. 
After designing and building some equipment from discarded scrap metal, he received generous volunteer help from the U.S. Coast Guard, and eventually produced a good number of healthy clam sets on a flat that had been out of production for years." 

The cultivation experiments proposed by the Bourne/Sandwich shell fishermen's association in 1981 were no different than the aeration sludge systems at the Hyannis Plant. The only difference was the shell fishers of the Cape wanted to keep nature's filter systems alive and with them healthy shell and finfish habitats functional. They could see sapropel (black mayonnaise) compost smother the clam beds, they lacked equipment to restore soil circulation. The shell fishers were ready to declare war upon black mayonnaise; they just never got the tools to do it. It was a habitat war they would soon lose as the climate continued to warm bacterial closures increased and with it, so did black mayonnaise. 
The rise of sapropel is an indicator that oxygen-requiring organisms would fact-check habitat conditions – the bottom for them would soon become "toxic" and soft. (Sandra Macfarlane did a comprehensive study of Cape Cod's bay scallop fishery in 1999 and reported on page 16 that 44% of survey recipients reported that bottoms had gone from firm (hard) to soft.  Only 4% of the survey respondents reported the opposite, soft to firm hard.  This report was done for my old Cape Cod employer, the UMASS Cooperative Extension Service (See "Bay Scallops in Massachusetts Waters: A Review of the Fishery and Prospects for Future Enhancement and Aquaculture," prepared for the Barnstable County Cape Cod Cooperative Extension Service, Macfarlane, S. L., 1999).

The areas, now with no harvest energy, "failed" faster and clam sets in them declined. Movements of seed were also discussed, as the Cape once did move large amounts of both hard clam and soft clam seed, using hydraulics, but those local programs had largely ceased from concerns about bottom disturbance (John Hammond personal communication, T. Visel, 1980's).

One shellfish meeting in Sandwich, Massachusetts, one of the last the shellfish group had an argument broke out about the cause of shellfish loss, one side was blaming bacteria counts from swans to streets, the other group felt it was an enrichment problem, ranging from golf course fertilizers to human sewage. In the middle of this discussion, it was decided someone would contact John "Clint" Hammond, a retired oysterman in Chatham, "He would know what to do."  The someone was myself.  Concern was also expressed about the bay scallop crop, which was declining from a high in 1978.
 
My meeting with John Hammond was at one of the oyster and clam sheds off Barn Hill Road.  One of the first issues discussed was eelgrass.  This is when I was first exposed to a habitat history of massive changes of eelgrass population-coverage.  At this meeting, I obtained a letter dated September 20, 1968 to William Leslie, who was then Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers New England Division, 424 Trapelo Road, Waltham, Mass in a Pleasant Bay Survey Report.  One of the concerns was the impact of dredging upon eelgrass – an important forage for the waterfowl, Brant (geese).  Following is a segment of the letter:
 
"With respect to the questions you asked, we find:
1.      The proposed changes which would decrease the water depth, thereby increasing bottom affected by solar radiation, could result in additional eel grass growth. However, increased circulation of the water could diminish the growth of eelgrass.  Spreading eelgrass has been noted in Pleasant Bay to be taking over quahog setting and growing bottoms. Also, too much eelgrass is deemed a detriment to scallop fishing, while too little is also harmful.  We conclude that the net effect will be little change."

Department of Health, Education and Welfare Regional Office, Region I, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal building, Boston, Massachusetts. Floyd B. Taylor – Regional Program Chief Water Supply and Sea Reservist Program
Mr. Hammond explained to me that bay scallops could quickly respond to habitat change as short life span of 18 to 24 months.  After conditions changed, bay scallops could "move in first" into habitats and eelgrass only years later. This could explain the rapid increase of bay scallops after the 1938 hurricane and very low populations in the 1900s.  Eelgrass "would follow" the more rapid response of bay scallops reaching a habitat maximum three decades alter (1968-1978).
Nelson Marshall – writes in Maritimes, Volume 23, #2, May 1979, Pg. 12, "The Unpredictable Bay Scallop." that he was also puzzled by the sudden return of bay scallops – (that is now associated with the climate oscillation termed the NAO).
"We really do not understand why this prolific spawner failed to show a breakthrough in the survival of its spawn for so many years. Nor, do we understand what happened more recently to reverse this trend. It was thought that environmental force might have been a cause of the population decline."  Look back over a century, it is easy to see higher bay scallop crabs after severe storm-filled winters.

As bay scallops quickly declined with hot summers and low oxygen, eelgrass lagged behind in losing habitat coverage (maximum) because of its unique ability to offset (delay) succession.  In when in acid sulfate, marine soils survived by protecting its root zone oxygen requiring bacteria by moving oxygen to its roots.  In this way, it is able to prevent a loss of its fragile root rhizomes which exchange needed ions (plant nutrients) from the soil which in heat and high organics becomes sulfide rich.  Sulfide is a plant poison and if soil pores are not reopened the circulation in the soil itself becomes stagnant and soil pore water spaces became sulfide rich, seeping into the water column. As sulfide conditions move to the soil surface (called the black layer in turf management) eelgrass is weakened and then dies. If sulfide levels remain high the soil a patch of white might occur (Beg to a species) as bacterial storms oxidized hydrogen sulfide as an electron energy source- they need hydrogen sulfide to live and is the patches of "white" on the bottom by New York, Long Island bay men reported in 1979 to 1987, areas once skiff trawled (and subject to surface soil cultivation) had white patches on them after many areas where closed to this fishery.

Storms set soil cultivation in process, breaking up sulfur composts (sapropel) and in the 1960s soil cultivation from storms allowed eelgrass to spread to a habitat maximum and a times, negatively impacted bay scallops.  This cultivation would allow for a sudden set of softshell clams, and then hard-shells, quahogs in deeper regions.

This is how these "great" clam sets occur, only to be followed years later by the first eelgrass patches.  The storms that put so much energy into these marine soils also spread the seed pods of eelgrass. When pods landed in suitable soils, they started to grow. Eventually the growth of eelgrass would ruin these quahogs beds (See IMEP #30: Quahoggers Final Stand Against Eelgrass in Chatham, posted October 9, 2014, The Blue Crab Forum^TM, Fishing, Eeling & Oystering thread) and would lead small boat fishers on Cape Cod to consider them a foe rather than a friend (See EC #18-B: Thick Hot Eelgrass, Shellfish and Bacteria, Friend or Foe, posted October 20, 2020, The Blue Crab Forum^TM Environment and Conservation thread).

Marine Peat and Composting Habitats
Most people see marine humus deposits as peat – humus with plant and root tissue in them, the salt marshes along the coast.  Here marine humus has become peat, fibrous material with a vegetation cover – salt marsh hay.  It (salt marsh) is just compost that has collected in low – energy areas over thousands of years and gradually supported surface vegetation.  But the surface that people see today once started as loose humus, the bacterial composting process in estuaries, similar to ponds and lakes and the most known habitats – peat bogs.  The salt marsh of cold is abundant with spring life and the chemical exchange of oxygen from the air at low tides creates this peat enabling plants to live on it.  To observers, the creeks in the peat have banks with fiddler and marsh crab burrows.  Most birds feed on these banks and shallow areas looking for food.  The salt marsh of heat is a very different place and if extended shows signs of sulfide toxicity – the yellowing of Spartina, or in many cases, its die off.  It is the chemistry of peat and humus that can turn it into sapropel – the absence of oxygen.  It is also this same chemistry that was to impact thousands of acres of winter flounder habitat – from heat.  Heat changes the chemistry of salt marshes from the "good" marshes of the 1960's and 1970's.  Salt marshes were often treated as a single isolated habitat type isolated it seems to impacts from land, rainfall, and organic matter from upland (forest) sources.  Most marshes have a fresh water input source that over time was able to deliver vast periodic surges of organic matter especially during floods and tropical storms.  In fact, all of this organic matter helps feed sulfur reducing bacteria in times of heat and lower dissolved oxygen in sea water.  This would produce in high heat sulfides toxic to small winter flounder.  These are recorded as massive late summer fish kills.
Compost is a collection of organic substances in the process of bacterial decay and on land dominated by aerobic bacteria – those that live in the presence of oxygen.  Compost without oxygen or anaerobic no or low oxygen bacteria reduce organic matter to primary chemical compounds that are beneficial to plants.  The oxygen bacterial pathway is much faster, than the low or oxygen one – and in heat organic matter can collect in deposits in bogs or marshes.  Many fishers, over time, observe the formation of organic matter in small lakes or ponds.  After initial dredging or creation, pond or lake bottoms are usually clean or sandy but in time this habitat succeeds or changes to those of a soft/compost community.  (This has been the topic of several IMEP/Environment Conservation posts on The Blue Crab Forum^TM) and the type species and success of fishing may diminish.  This chemical process that can ruin fishing is the same one in salt marshes, in high heat low oxygen conditions.  When growing up in Hamden and then later in Madison I was to watch this filling in process in Clark Pond (now the southern edge of Quinnipiac University) and Madison lakes filled with leaves.  In the Hamden example the "marshes" grew outward, with Madison lakes I suspect leaf raking/leaf fall dumping contributed to habitat succession (The Blue Crab Forum™ Report #3, June 12, 2013).  It took over a decade for approvals and funding, but in November 1981, a New Haven Register article titled "Engineers OK Restoration of Clark's Pond" by Jennifer Kaylen closed with a short segment attesting that at one time lake organic matter did have value as soil nourishment – "According to site plans, the authority will dredge 220,000 cubic yards of dredge material from the pond ... the authority plans to defray the $50,000 cost of the project by selling the dredged material."  Clark's Pond was a popular skating area and I skated on the pond in the early 1960's.  I can recall talking to New ERA Industries in Clinton, CT about its value as it was processed years ago into a commercial product.  The dredged organic matter had composted over many years (dredge material), was dried on a field and lighter fractions, such as straw fragments or peat moss, blended in for potting soil.  In Clark's Pond, a marsh started to form in the middle (observations, T. Visel).  Dredging out the collected organic matter reversed habitats called depth.  It is natural that bodies of water act to collect organic matter.  In warm water with less oxygen, organics tend to accumulate faster as bacterial composting is slower.

Although natural leaf fall over times has created terrestrial bogs and wetlands, most of estuarine research has been directed towards "cultural" eutrophication – the addition of human generated plant nutrients while "quiet" in respects to climate cycles.  The emphasis provides a bias that human actions alone can prevent or cause pond and lakes from accumulating organic matter.  To look at pond and lakes as manmade habitats, they all have a lifespan – in time, they would need to be dredged or they, themselves, succeed into marshes or bogs.  In times of ice production, as spring approached the dam weir boards (terminology from herring runs) would be pulled, these areas would revert to pasture lands and oxygen-requiring bacteria break down "fall" leaves.  Other times water would be drained in winter to allow ice to kill shoreline vegetation – commonly referred to as a "winter draw down."  Most often however lake and pond associations have found that dredging can stop and reverse habitat succession – but in time organic matter will accumulate again especially in hot weather then oxygen levels fall in deep waters with a summer thermocline.  Most of the time Connecticut farmers simply scooped out pond mud for fertilizer (much before the 1970's environmental regulations) Circular 142 – May 1940 from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (New Haven, CT) titled "Peat and Swamp Muck for Soil Improvement in CT" by M. F. Morgan contains this segment: "Swamp muck or peat was used for the improvement of poor, sandy and gravelly soils in some sections of Connecticut at least as early as 1800."  Professor S. W. Johnson – first Director of this station published extensive treatise on the subject in 1878 with data on samples from 23 farmers who were then using such water muck materials as a soil nourishment that has long benefited agriculture.  Natural vegetation leaf fall mixed in with animal waste in streams moved organics down to the sea.  Even in estuaries this compost was utilized for agriculture described as mussel mud or marine mud (See Connecticut Rivers Lead Sapropel Production 1850-1885, posted Sept. 29, 2014, The Blue Crab Forum™ Fishing, Eeling, and Oystering thread).  The renewable aspect of a natural resource (compost) to assist plants is an old one although this process greatly changed the quality or quantity of fish habitat in ponds in lakes, it was harvested as a field dressing, mixed with stable manure or peat moss to feed bacterial populations and provide some nitrogen but mostly for carbon replenishment to developed farm soils.

Marine mud, if left to freeze or be rinsed of rain, was often mixed with beach sand and sold as special compositions for grass or vegetables.  Although one New Haven fertilizer supplier "Pollard Bothers Improved Fertilizers" who suggested improved formulas upon inspection found to be only Long Wharf New Haven Harbor Mud piled upon Meadow Street (where the New Haven Board of Education's offices are today) was mixed with sand (perhaps from the area just south of the railroad tracks).  It was though that this "improved" expensive fertilizer was harbor mud from an 1860 Long Wharf dredge project.  (Pg. 31 Report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, CT 1878).  (After negative reports circulated that this special fertilizer was just beach sand and harbor dredge muck this business left for Rhode Island).

For small ponds, a "mud scoop" was used (most likely the precursor to drag scoops) with an ox or horse team to remove "mud" from pond bottoms.  This compost was a part of Connecticut agriculture until the 1930's.  To provide a valuable top dressing such applications were used for salt hay fields and vegetable gardens.  In Danvers, Massachusetts, it was associated with excellent crops of field onions.  A similar technology was often used to clean canals which often had dead ends and low flow speeds where organics would accumulate and form sapropel.

Coastal farmers soon realized the value of marine mud on salt hay fields (for carbon sources) and by 1921 mechanical machines were developed and an article in Popular Mechanics refers to this problem.  "It is so impalpably fine that it follows wherever the water runs.  So it finds its way into the irrigation canals and spreading out overly the land, the best fertilizer in the world, but it would soon fill the canals unless cleaned out frequently" (Popular Mechanics, Jan. 1921, pg. 93.)

Farmers were well aware of habitat succession because they witnessed it, and terrestrial composts have become part of the renewable "green" efforts of the last half century.  The concept of composting on land, its soil and agricultural benefit is well known even celebrated in larger habitat ecosystems.  However, subtidal composts remain poorly understood (my view) in marine habitats.

Salt Marshes are Marine Composts – A Summation
It may be hard for some to visualize salt marshes as large compost piles with a vegetation cover that is in fact what they are.  It is important to consider this bacterial organic digestion process to more fully understand the terms "habitat bottleneck" or "critical habitat" used in the present literature.  Most of not all of these recent papers contain an oxygen bias – that is they assume that salt marsh composting (glucose metabolism) will occur at all times with sufficient oxygen levels.  Although it is frequently urged to turn compost piles on land to introduce oxygen and prevent the formation of ammonia-rich or "smelling compost," this concept is rarely mentioned in the estuarine literature.  Just as terrestrial composts sealed from oxygen favors ammonia production, a loss of nitrogen as a gas and source of smells can be corrected by "mixing."  That only occurs in the subtidal compost deposits during strong storms, and when low oxygen levels occur in high heat, marsh surfaces become soft, as the peat below salt marsh becomes "hot" and sulfide rich.  This marine compost is beginning to show signs of sealed terrestrial composts, the formation of sulfides and purging of ammonia – toxic to most sea life (That is the subject of the Blue Crab Forum™ Environmental Conservation post titled "Salt Marshes A Climate Change Bacterial Battlefield," September 29, 2015).  In high heat and low oxygen levels, marine composts can purge large amounts of ammonia.  At the same time, it is when nitrate levels drop.  This is when sulfate-requiring bacteria start to dominate and with that transition, sulfide levels increase.

Eelgrass Habitats
The continued absence of the sulfate/sulfur cycle in nearshore studies indicates we have a bias of cold high oxygen water quality conditions being applied to research conducted during great heat.  In addition, in cold we may not fully understand the change in habitat quality for fish and wish to rebuild warm water species when their habitat clock had long run out.  This problem continues today in many research papers as periods or "snap shot ecology" the setting of habitat conditions only for the time in which they were conducted.  The agriculture community has defined this condition as the length of a growing season.  We have, unfortunately, no similar yardstick for the marine habitats.

The best example (or worst depending upon point of view I suppose) is the eelgrass/bay scallop relationship.  Here a snapshot, the presence of small bay scallops setting on clean green eelgrass blades would be associated with a good bay scallop (habitat).  However, when you look at a larger time period and consider other habitat parameters other than just presence or absence of eelgrass, and compare habitat dominance and biochemical attributes of climate cycles one would see exactly the opposite habitat relationship – high periods of eelgrass dominance occur in heat with few storms and bay scallops' abundance just the opposite – they thrive after much energy (storms) and cold water.  In the 1900's summers were hot in New England and eelgrass grew in immense coastal meadows as the Rhode Island bay scallop crop disappeared.  Their habitat clocks overlap- at some point and lacking the real scallop grass (coralline reds) will set on eelgrass as a substitute but not perhaps the preferred plant spat collector.  This overlap gives the perception of habitat significance when it is just habitat succession in shallow waters over time.  In the colder 1960's and early 1970's, bay scallop approached a second spawning. 

A report compiled by Georges E. Bockstael of the Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife upon Sheffield Cove, September, 1972, contains this segment and the importance of pathology of in gonad development for spawning and shellfish sets (pg. 2) (lower Narragansett Bay (my comments, T. Visel):

            Bay Scallop (Aequipecten irradians)
"Bay scallops were observed in the northeastern channel of the cove.  They occupied a range approximately 10-18 meters wide and 100 meters long.  In this area, they were found in densities varying from sparse (they had to be looked for) to dense (several could be observed at once).  The average was about one to two per square meter with a 30 to 40 bushel potential for the whole area.  All these observed use larger than 52 mm and passed a shock ridge (shell line, T. Visel).  Several gonads were examined and these appeared to be ripe, perhaps a second spawning to come.  No seed scallops were found."

The bay scallop is highly reflective of a cold water species that does well after strong storms.  The shallow water fishery is subject to "high energy larval traps" in which scallop seed matures if cold enough and in severe cold may spawn twice.  Bay scallop abundance follows colder periods as a cycle (See Appendix #3).

Studies of the Niantic River bay scallop fishery conducted by Nelson Marshall in the 1950's need to be reviewed.  Although many researchers mention Dr. Marshall's bay scallop research work they often do not include references to the fact that bay scallops returned to Niantic River (Bay) after the outbreak of the eelgrass blight of 1930-1931.  The heavy bay scallop crops returned between 1932 to 1938 at a time eelgrass habitat had greatly declined and storm intensity now increased.  Bay scallops in the Niantic area were first caught in 15 to 25 feet of water outside of Niantic River and around Masons Island in the 1920's but after hurricanes scallop seed was washed into shallow "bays."  The first fishery reports do not include the word "bay" but just "scallop."  That is because they prefer deeper cooler habitats less susceptible to heating as the "scallop fisheries" were first in deeper cooler waters and not the shallows (under 10 feet) subject to intense summer temperatures.

Shellfish researchers especially David Belding on Cape Cod in the 1920s described the often negative (not positive) impacts of eelgrass monocultures to these shellfisheries.

Many eelgrass papers reference the positive impacts of shellfish populations but this occurs at the very beginning of the "eelgrass habitat clock" (or succession) and few give a long-term impact of eelgrass meadow creation, which is negative to the many shellfish species now termed as seafood.

The cycle of eelgrass moves into well cultivated marine soils with shell hash to grow into dense from isolated patches.  Shellfish spat is slowed and benefits from initial reef habitat (eelgrass) services of structure, but in time gathers organics which in high heat leads to sulfide – sulfuric acid conditions toxic to shellfish veligers.  Eelgrass suffocated benthic shellfish in the 1950's and the harvest activities of the shellfishers actually tend to hold this natural successional process – hand hauled dredges, or hand hauled rakes – by removing organic matter and thinning out weak plants (similar to terrestrial lawn core aerators) actually improves marine soil conditions for eelgrass and reduces the potential of sulfide root rot failure (also similar aerator impacts terrestrial lawn grasses as well).

This is why there is so much written in the historical shellfish literature about the negative impacts of eelgrass to shellfish species – not benefits.  Eelgrass helps "kill" the soil by gathering organics and clay particles.  It changes over time the soil chemistry.  That is why temperature and energy need to be included in marine soil – shellfish/plant study.

Temperature and Bacterial Responses
In December 2014, I proposed a five-year review for eelgrass research to include climate changes.  In conversations surrounding the eelgrass initiative, the mid-1980's were a time of the creation of the EPA Estuary Programs, which occurred during the warming climate period of 1972 to 2011.  This period would equal (but not yet surpass) the previous Great Heat, the period I often mention the time period of 1880-1920, which saw "great heat waves" in the 1890's and reached its peak in 1899 when the winter was so warm that ice failed to form on lakes and ponds [This resulted in the New England "ice famine" of 1899, which sent price shock waves into dealers in large cities while others withheld supplies, anticipating even higher ice prices. Theodore Roosevelt cut his political teeth at this time, assuring ice supplies for New York City and supply of free ice to the poorest city residents. NPR has a great segment about this titled "The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and The Rise of Roosevelt" August 11, 2010.  Roosevelt went into storage plants and took needed ice for the poor and gave it away - free.]

The warmth and few storms of the 1890's would cause the collapse of New England's cold water fisheries (See IMEP #55A: The Fall of New England's Cold Water Fisheries 1890-1910) while creating better habitat conditions for blue crabs.  Peaking in 1912 – the oyster sets 1898-1899 in CT were the oyster sets of the century and striped bass which were very small in the 1870's grew huge during the warm to hot period free of serious storms.  (Many of the shoreline villages and towns were built in Connecticut for city residents who first camped on tent platforms to escape these 1890's killer heat waves and the foul airs linked to the spread of disease) (See EC #6: Clean Milk and Pure Oysters, posted July 23, 2015, The Blue Crab Forum^TM Environment and Conservation thread (Bacteria Disease and Warm Water).
It was during this second great heat, 1972 to 2011, in which Long Island Sound waters again warmed and cold water fisheries again declined.  Lobsters and winter flounder had bacterial diseases, bay scallops declined and the tautog fishery had several year classes of "young" disappear when oyster, blue crab and striper fishing improved.  EPA looked for solutions to fish and lobster die-offs (which alarmed the public) as universities faced tough budgets and grants became more than an added benefit to a career necessity.  The emerging EPA Estuary Program soon had nitrogen identified as a large factor and linked it to human (pollution) influence.  Eelgrass was used as an indicator organism in several states to support nitrogen limits, but neither human nitrogen nor eelgrass habitat representations were completely accurate and the aspect of science for greater public good perhaps eclipsed "publish or perish" but a more dangerous "grants or gone" – my view, T. Visel.

This is not unique, a similar public policy reaction set in with the decline of German forests in the 1970's and 1980's.  This is now referred to as the forest Waldsterben controversy.  Several articles describe how forest die-off studies became political and biased by grant funds (See Against Politicization of Science, Hans von Storch and Dennis Bray, 2010).
The temptation to bring in grants, the ability to alter public policy (as a public good), which then turned to regulatory statutes, was just too great.  Because so much is at question here, no particular agency is to blame (and blame only delays possible solutions – my opinion, Tim Visel).  The public is best served by re-examining what happened and making certain that this type of research situation does not occur again (my view, T. Visel).

Appendix #1

 

High Sulfide Levels Suspected in Clam Dieoffs in 1930

 

The Soft Shell Clam Fishery of Massachusetts, 1930

 

Dr. David L. Belding, Massachusetts Research On the Growth of Soft Shell Clams – 1930

 
"Eelgrass as we have seen is fatal to a good clam bed.  Many productive beds would be quickly spoiled by eelgrass if it were not for constant digging.  The grass raises the surface of the bed above the normal level by bringing in silt, which smothers the clams.  The reclamation of such flats can be accomplished by destroying the grass and allowing the water to carry away the accumulated muddy deposits.  At Newburyport, an eelgrass flat with a surface layer of soft mud was converted into a productive hard flat by digging.  A strong current removed the loosened material, and a new flat about one foot lower than the original was formed.   A coating of algae often helps to protect the flat from too much shifting and the mud surface furnishes abundant food forms.  Eelgrass helps to hold the mud firmly but as it also catches silt, it forms a layer of soft mud, which is apt to smother the small clams.  It occasionally happens that parts of a flat, which seem similar in every respect exhibit extreme differences in the way they harbor or repel that clam set.  It is almost as though an invisible line had been drawn beyond which clams did not grow, Hydrogen sulfide and other organic compounds in the soil may account in part for this condition." 
 
 

Appendix #2

Establishing restoration objectives for eelgrass in Long Island Sound. Part I: Review of the seagrass literature relevant to Long Island Sound

Report to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and the US EPA. 58 pp.

By Jamie M. P. Vaudrey (2008)

 

NATURAL CYCLE OF LOSS & RECOVERY
 
In 1995, a poorly-flushed, restricted sub-estuary (Turnbull Bay) in the northern Indian River Lagoon, FL experienced a shift in seagrass species from Halodule wrightii to Ruppia maritima, coincident with increasing macroalgae biomass.  Over 100ha of seagrass disappeared from 1996 to 1997.  By 2000, seagrass had returned to its pre-perturbation levels.  This decline in seagrass was not linked to water quality issues or to a natural or anthropogenic catastrophic event.  Morris and Virnstein (2004) proposed that the loss of seagrass was part of a natural cycle, where decaying seagrass and macroalgae accumulate in beds, creating an organic ooze which stresses the eelgrass by raising sulfide levels in the sediments.  Anoxia in the sediments and the accompanying high sulfide levels cause the seagrass to become loosely attached and eventually to fail.  Without the seagrass and associated rhizome mat to hold the ooze in place, the decaying organic matter can be flushed out of the embayment under storm conditions.  Removal of the organic matter leaves behind an embayment with a primarily mineral sediment, ready for recolonization by seagrass. (Morris and Virnstein, 2004)

 Appendix #3

 Plants and Animals of the Estuary

Pg. 32 The Bay Scallop

Estuarine Animals

Nancy C. Olmstead and Paul E. Fell

The Connecticut Arboretum

Bulleting No. 23

June 1978

 
Bay Scallop (Aequipeclen irradians): The shell of the bay scallop is fan-shaped, with a scalloped margin and 17-21 radiating ribs. It is light gray-brown, with darker markings, and measures approximately 7.5 cm across. Projections of the shell on either side of the hinge resemble ears and are equal in size in this species. The edge of the mantle bears a row of well developed eyes. Scallops can secrete byssal threads and may be found attached to the substrate when young, but adults are free-living and can swim about by rapidly opening and closing the shell valves, forcing jets of water out.

Bay scallops are harvested commercially in many of the shallow bays along Long Island Sound and southward. Only the muscle which connects the two shell valves is eaten, and it is considered a delicacy. The abundance of bay scallops varies a great deal from year to year, for reasons which are not completely understood. It does appear that an adequate oxygen supply in the water is an important factor and that very dense stands of eelgrass, in which these shellfish are usually found, can cause a drop in population size by impeding water circulation. Old time shell fishermen say that when the clam population is large the scallop population is small, and vice versa.
 
 

Appendix #4

High Sulfide Levels Suspected in Eelgrass Dieoffs in 1992

The Impact of Marine Soil Sulfides to Eelgrass

 
Two decades ago it was known that the biochemistry was changing the vegetation of salt marshes.  The cordgrass Spartina species was transitioning to plants that could tolerate higher levels of peat soil sulfide.  Coastal Connecticut residents have noticed the red coloration of Salicornia – salt marshes were turning a different color as this plant can tolerate high sulfide levels.  The same or very similar biochemistry (sulfide formation) was known in the 1980's for eelgrass and turtle.  Sulfide was a plant toxin.  One of the major research papers on the impact of soil sulfides was conducted on Florida seagrass beds in 1994 by Paul Carlson, Laura Yarbo and Timothy Barber.  That reason was published in the Bulletin of Marine Science, 54(3), pgs. 731-746, University of Miami.  This article was titled "Relationship of Sediment Sulfide to Mortality of Thalassia testudinum in Florida Bay."  Similar research was presented in the 1992 Thesis by Jill Goodman at the College of William & Mary, Virginia.  "The Photosynthesis Responses of Eelgrass (Zostera marina) To Light and Sediment Sulfide In A Shallow Barrier Island Lagoon," knowing the sulfide levels in peat and submerged peat.  (Eelgrass) is the most critical plant growth condition to measure – my view, T. Visel.  A portion of the introduction is reproduced below. 
 
Photosynthetic Responses of Eelgrass (Zostera marina L) to Light and Sediment Sulfide in a Shallow Barrier Island Lagoon
Jill Lynn Goodman
College of William and Mary - Virginia Institute of Marine Science, 1992
 
Recommended Citation
Goodman, Jill Lynn, "Photosynthetic Responses of Eelgrass (Zostera marina L) to Light and Sediment Sulfide in a Shallow Barrier Island Lagoon" (1992). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539617651.
https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.25773/v5-pdzq-8765
 
"Wetland sediments, where anaerobic metabolism and sulfate reduction dominate, have been the focus in studies on the effect of accumulation of H2S on plant responses. Seagrasses are also found in organic rich, highly reducing sediments. Shoot lacunal development and rates of photosynthesis are critical to the downward transport of 0₂ from the leaves to the roots of seagrasses (Pulich, 1989). When photosynthetic activity is low, roots must tolerate significant periods of anoxia and/or hypoxia (Smith et al., 4 1984, Smith et al., 1988, Zimmerman et al., 1989).
 
When the 0₂ supply in the sediments becomes limiting, aerobic respiration is replaced by anaerobic metabolic processes (Koch et al., 1990). During these periods of anoxia, heterotrophic anaerobic bacteria use inorganic ions as terminal electron acceptors to break down organic matter (Hines et al., 1989). Where adequate supplies of sulfate and organic matter are present, sulfide is produced in these anaerobic sediments by sulfate reducing bacteria of the genus Desulfovibrio (Ingold & Havil,l 1984). These organisms use sulfate as their terminal electron acceptor for oxidative phosphorylation, the amount of hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) present in marine sediments being dependent on this process (Ingold & Havill, 1984, Howarth & Giblin, 1983).
 
In salt marsh sediments, where Spartina alterniflora is found, H₂S has been found to be the primary factor inhibiting plant growth and increasing mortality. The mechanisms for this apparent inhibition are not understood (Delaune et al., 1984, King et al., 1982). Several possibilities exist. For example, there is a reduction in ATP generation due to the switch from aerobic to anaerobic metabolic processes (Koch & Mendelssohn 1989). In addition, sulfide accumulation has been found to decrease the activity of root metalloenzymes, such as important oxidases, used in the electron transport system of respiration (Koch et al., 1990). H₂S may also affect alternate anoxic pathways by limiting the production 5 of ADH (alcohol dehydrogenase), which is the enzyme catalyzing the terminal step in alcoholic fermentation (Koch et al., 1990). Ethanol, the end product of alcoholic fermentation, when released to the sediment may be a major carbon drain from the plant (Hines et al. 1989). In order to eliminate this carbon drain, fermentative metabolism is maintained only at low levels (Smith et al., 1988). The reduction in nitrogen uptake caused by increases levels of sulfide in sediments surrounding S. alterniflora may also be detrimental to its growth and production.
 
Rice, which is also found in highly reduced, water saturated soils, has been found to be limited in growth, root hair development, and nutrient uptake by increased levels of sediment sulfide (Joshi & Hollis, 1977). Chlorosis and stunted growth are indications that rice plants are being stressed by highly reduced soil conditions (Koch & Menselssohn, 1989).
 
The growth of Salicornia europea, which is also associated with sulfide containing wetland sediments, has been found to be unaffected by increases in sediment sulfide (Wilkin-Michalska, 1985). Sulfide pretreatment inhibited activity of two metallo-enzymes in plants from the upper marsh, such as Spartina foliosa and Scirpus robustus, but had no effect on enzymes from S. europea (Cooper, 1984). Aster tripolum, a wide ranging halophyte, also appeared to be tolerant of sulfide at concentrations frequently encountered in salt marshes (Cooper, 1984)."
 

 

 

"Relationship of Sediment Sulfide to Mortality of Thalassia Testudinum in Florida Bay"

 

Bulletin of Marine Science, 54 (3), 733-746, 1994

 

Paul R. Carlson, Jr., Laura A. Yarbro and Timothy R. Barber

 

My comments (    ) and identified as such (T. Visel)

 
Catastrophic mortality of the seagrass Thalassia testudinum (turtle grass, T. Visel) has occurred in Florida Bay since 1987.  Among the possible causes for Thalassia dieoff are increases in area, density and biomass of seagrass communities due to high salinities in Florida Bay, resulting from water management activities and a decade-long drought in south Florida (Zieman et. al., 1989).  The same authors have also suggested that the lack of a major hurricane in the past 27 years has caused high levels of inorganic and organic sedimentation (lack of soil cultivation – T. Visel) have restricted circulation (soil pore water exchange – T. Visel) and increased summertime salinity and temperature stress (conditions made worse in high heat – T. Visel).  A pathogen might also play a role in dieoff: Porter and Muehlstein (1990) reported the presence of a potentially pathogenic strain of the slime mold labrynthulla in lesions on thalassia leaves from dieoff sites.  Because many areas affected by dieoff are located far from potential sources of anthropogenic (man-made or man-caused – T. Visel) nutrients and toxic compounds, pollution is not considered a contributing factor (Robb Lee et. al., 1991).  (In other words, these turtle grass dieoffs appear to be natural – T. Visel).
 
As part of a collaborative research group study of Thalassia dieoff in Florida Bay, we have focused on the role of sediment (marine soil – T. Visel) sulfide in the dieoff process.  Sulfide is produced in anaerobic marine sediments (marine soils – T. Visel) by bacteria that use sulfate as a terminal electron acceptor (sulfate reducing bacteria or SRB – T. Visel) in the degradation of organic matter (Goldhaber and Kaplan, 1975; Sorensen et. al., 1979).  High temperatures, abundant organic matter, and low sulfide-binding capacity can result in extremely high pore water sulfide concentrations in sediment of Florida Bay seagrass beds (Barber and Carlson, 1993).  Sulfide is highly toxic to many plants and animals (Joshi et. al., 1975; Smith et. al., 1976; Bradley and Dunn, 1989; Koch and Mendelssohn, 1989) because of direct poisoning of cellular metabolism and indirect hypoxia due to the reaction of sulfide with molecular oxygen" (Pg. 734, Bulletin of Marine Science, Vol. 54, No. 3, 1994).
  

Appendix #5

 

High Sulfide Levels Suspected in Eelgrass Dieoffs in 2008

OVERCOMING MUDDY SEDIMENTS

The Sea Grass Long Island Bog - May 21, 2008

Chris Pickerell, Eelgrass Program Manager at CCE in Southhold, New York, CCE Cornell Cooperative Extension

 
 
Overcoming Muddy Sediments?
"As I have noticed in several previous blogs, we have observed that the grass in most of our muddy bottom creeks and harbors around Long Island has disappeared.  There are many theories as to why this happened, but on the top of the list is the stress associated with growing in muddy, highly organic, anoxic (lack of oxygen) sediments.
One theory is that low light and/or high water temperatures (or some other stressor) combined with sediment anoxia kills the plants by poisoning the meristem.  This appears to have a significant impact on young seedlings.

Sulfide toxicity has been held out as the main culprit in this scenario.  The problem is how can we control sulfur concentrations in the marine environment?  The answer is we probably can't since sulfur is everywhere!
One way around this may be to somehow alter the sediment in such a way that it does not go completely anoxic.  That might be achieved by lowering the amount of organic matter and/or increasing sediment texture (from silts to sands).  Since lowering organic matter is nearly impossible, we have considered changing the texture by adding thin layer of sand to the surface of the mud.  In theory, this should allow oxygen to penetrate the surface sediments and prevent sulfide build-up at the base of the shoot.

We decided to try this out at Noyack Creek in Southampton where we already have a large number of seedlings that resulted from last year's restoration work.  Over the last couple days, we set out 30 small tubes isolating individual seedlings on the bottom.  The experiment involves doing nothing to the seedling (control) or either adding 1cm or 2.5cm of sand to the surface of the sediment surrounding the seedling.  The hope is that we will see a difference in survival and growth between these three treatments in the coming weeks.

At this time, all the seedlings look great and there is no sign of stress whatsoever.  However, we observed a similar thing a few years ago when thousands of natural seedlings recruited to this site.  That year the seedlings looked great during May and early June, but by the end of June they were ALL dead."    
 

Appendix #6

High Sulfide Levels Suspected in Turtle Grass Dieoff in 1994

 

The Dieoff of Turtle Grass Florida Bay Study

Bulletin of Marine Science 54(3) 731-746 1994

RELATIONSHIP OF SEDIMENT SULFIDE TO MORTALITY OF THALASSIA TESTUDINUM IN FLORIDA BAY

Paul R. Carlson, Jr., Laura A. Yarbro and Timothy R. Barber

 

ABSTRACT

Sediment porewater sulfide concentrations in Florida Bay seagrass beds affected by the catastrophic mortality of Thalassia testudinum (Turtle-grass) were considerably higher than those of seagrass beds in the Indian River, Charlotte Harbor, or Tampa Bay Sulfide concentrations in apparently healthy seagrass beds were highest in fall and might have contributed to chronic hypoxic stress of Thalassia roots and rhizomes High porewater sulfide concentrations measured in dying areas of seagrass beds suggest that sulfide produced by microbial degradation of dying Thalassia might exacerbate stress on adjacent, surviving seagrass Sulfide concentrations in recent die-off areas initially were higher than in adjacent, surviving grass beds By the end of the study, however, the pattern was reversed apparently due to depletion of Thalassia-denved organic matter in the sediments of die-off areas In June 1990, high sulfide concentrations preceded a die-oft episode at one site, suggesting (1) elevated sulfide concentrations might be involved in a suite of factors that trigger die-off episodes or (2) elevated porewater sulfide results from death and decomposition of belowground Thalassia tissue before necrosis of shoots becomes visible In either case, elevated porewater sulfide concentrations might be of value in predicting die-off We conclude that porewater sulfide probably is not the primary cause, but a synergistic stressor, which has acted in concert with factors (such as hyperthermia, hypersalinity, and microbial pathogens) suggested by other researchers, to cause Thalassia die-off in Florida Bay.
Catastrophic mortality of the seagrass Thalassia testudinum Banks ex König (Turtle-grass) has occurred in Florida Bay since 1987. Robblee et al. (1991) estimated that 4,000 ha of highly productive Thalassia-dominaXea seagrass beds had been almost completely denuded, and an additional 23,000 ha had been affected to a lesser degree; recurring "die-off" episodes since 1991 have further increased the amount of Thalassia lost. Thalassia testudinum is the dominant macrophyte species of Florida Bay (Zieman et al., 1989), and loss of Thalassia could affect the function of Florida Bay in providing juvenile habitat for pink shrimp and other species and winter habitat for wading and diving birds (Schomer and Drew, 1982).

Among the possible causes for Thalassia die-off are increases in area, density, and biomass of seagrass communities due to high salinities in Flonda Bay resulting from water management activities and a decade-long drought in south Florida (Zieman et al., 1989). The same authors have also suggested that the lack of a major hurricane in the past 27 years has caused high levels of inorganic and organic sedimentation that, in turn, have restricted circulation and increased summertime salinity and temperature stress. A pathogen might also play a role in dieoff: Porter and Muehlstein (1990) reported the presence of a potentially pathogenic strain of the slime mold Labyrinthula in lesions on Thalassia leaves from die-off sites. Because many areas affected by die-off are located far from potential sources of anthropogenic nutrients and toxic compounds, pollution is not considered a contributing factor (Robblee et al., 1991).

As part of a collaborative research group studying Thalassia die-off in Florida Bay, we have focused on the role of sediment sulfide in the die-off process. Sulfide is produced in anaerobic marine sediments by bacteria that use sulfate as a terminal electron acceptor in the degradation of organic matter (Goldhaber and Kaplan, 1975; Sorensen et al., 1979).  High temperatures, abundant organic matter, and low sulfide-binding capacity can result in extremely high porewater sulfide concentrations in sediments of Florida Bay seagrass beds (Barber and Carlson, 1993). Sulfide is highly toxic to many plants and animals (Joshi et al., 1975; Smith et al., 1976; Bradley and Dunn, 1989; Koch and Mendelssohn, 1989) because of direct poisoning of cellular metabolism and indirect hypoxia due to reaction of sulfide with molecular oxygen.

We hypothesized that sulfide might play two roles in Thalassia mortality: (1) a chronic, but widespread, role of direct toxicity effects and indirect effects of hypoxia of Thalassia roots and rhizomes throughout Florida Bay; and (2) an acute role, during active die-off episodes, of amplified toxicity and hypoxia affecting surviving Thalassia as nearby, dead Thalassia roots and rhizomes are degraded by bacteria.  Although Syringodium filiforme Kutz (Manatee-grass) and Halodule wrightii Aschers (Cuban shoal-grass) might also be affected by die-off, Robblee et al. (1991) noted that dense Thalassia beds appear to be most vulnerable to dieoff.
 

#9

MD Crabbing Resources / Re: Choptank boat rental

Last post by novicecrabber - January 07, 2025, 12:46:47 PM

Gootee's Marine - New & Used Boats, Service, and Parts in Church Creek, MD, near Wesley and Andrews

If they don't rent boats I bet they can tell you who does.

Thanks for the information.

[IMEP #147 Part 1: Observations of Eelgrass in Cold Temperatures]

#10

Fishing, Eeling & Oystering / IMEP #147 Part 1 Observations ...

Last post by BlueChip - January 07, 2025, 10:59:24 AM

IMEP #147 Part 1: Observations of Eelgrass in Cold Temperatures

"Understanding Science Through History"

Eelgrass Restoration Is Often Not Possible Without Soil Cultivation

The Eelgrass Composts in Cold Have Not Been Fully Explained for Climate Change

High Sulfides Can Destroy Eelgrass and Prevents Regrowth in Shallow Embayments

Viewpoint of Tim Visel - no other agency or organization

Thank you, The Blue Crab Forum^TM for posting these Habitat History and Environment Conservation reports – over 375,000 views to date

This is a delayed report – June 2023

Tim Visel retired from The Sound School June 30, 2022

Revised to May 2024

 
A Note from Tim Visel
History tells us the outcome of having to conduct a two-front war – that outcome is largely reported as a defeat.  That is what eelgrass has faced – too hot and a high organic (high carbon) soil fosters sulfate metabolism and acidic conditions that attack its roots.  In cold conditions, bacterial composting declines but fungal growths increase.  Studies of terrestrial composts have detailed this transition and why garden composters want to maintain heat and reduce fungal growths.  This aspect of bacterial reduction of dead plant tissue to organic fragments is well documented in terrestrial soil science but has been poorly described for marine composts.

I participated in some bathing beach bacteria tests in the Town of Madison in the 1970s.  The January reports often listed bacteria counts in the single digits while June and July tests were much higher.  This was a part of my investigation of the closure of Tom's Creek to shellfishing under a separate bacterial test – the National Shellfish Sanitation Program or NSSP for short.  According to Leo Bonoff, who was the Madison Town Clerk in the 1970s, winter shellfish waters always tested lower in winter, a traditional season for taking shellfish, usually starting November 15^th.  The difficulty came, according to Mr. Bonoff, from more and more shellfishing taking place in the spring and summer and required more extensive testing.  These summer tests were scoring much higher – he said simply "warmer water, more bacteria."

This is what eelgrass had to survive – low oxygen and more sulfate bacteria (sulfide) in summer and less bacteria but more fungal growth during the winter.  Eelgrass now faced a two-front war –- attack on its blades by a cooler water fungus and now acidic conditions – sulfate to sulfuric acid attack on its roots.  Both conditions are fueled by organic debris around its roots, it actually helped collect under a deepening root/peat compost.
Eelgrass in sandy soils would experience much less sulfate metabolism and less fungal compost species because, quite simply, there is much less organic food matter (carbon) for them to eat.

That is why, at first, eelgrass can survive by absorbing nitrogen from the water and then by the formation of nodes in its root tissue for nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
It is possible that eelgrass soil conditions are best between heat and cold and matches the observations of eelgrass cycles.  Both fungal and sulfuric acid root attack have been linked to high carbon-organic content marine soils.  The observations of the shellfish industry help confirm the natural cycles of eelgrass abundance, which depends on soil science – my view, T. Visel.
 
The Observations of Eelgrass Between Hot and Cold Conditions
This paper was started in 2005 and was focusing upon the importance of detailing a long-term habitat history – the change in habitat parameters over time.  As my employment from 1978 to 1990 involved shallow water habitats, most restoration projects concerned oysters, clams and scallops.  Although I had never experimented with the restoration of eelgrass, I worked with those who did.  The results were often disappointing and not unlike some of my eelgrass experiences on Cape Cod.  Here on the Cape I was exposed to the negative aspect of eelgrass in written state and federal shellfish reports and during field observations – it suffocated benthic shellfish and slowed feeding opportunities, creating small eye (meat) scallops called "grass scallops" in the historical shellfish literature.  I also was aware that federal and state reports often reported on some important negative features of eelgrass (as those associated with typical monoculture habitats) that it, over time, could change shellfish habitats and in very negative ways regarding the estuarine sulfur cycle. In the next two decades 1983 to 2003, I read many reports about eelgrass but they almost never mentioned the negative viewpoints and observations I knew about from my Cape Cod employment. 
This omission was impossible to miss as many shellfish manuscripts detailed the negative aspects of eelgrass growths in shallow water.  In the early 2000s, I asked some eelgrass researchers why these references (especially the work of David Belding on Cape Cod) were not mentioned.  Most (but not all) mentioned that this would hurt chances of obtaining "eelgrass grants."  It was explained that the awarding of grants was very important to the research community (university and non-profit) and that careers were built upon this funding.   It was an honest response to a dishonest situation – one the public was willing to spend millions of dollars (much of it taxpayer dollars) in the hope and sometimes a promise I knew that eelgrass could not always deliver.  Here, I refer to personal experiences of seeing eelgrass rot away in the hot shallow water of Buttermilk Bay. 

At first, most of the eelgrass reports mentioned helping bay scallops and based upon some Niantic River (CT) studies linking the two.  Not included was that this habitat association was accidental and not significant, especially in warming waters.  As water warms and eelgrass gathers organics into an organic-rich "top soil" (very much like terrestrial grasses), it increases the chance of forming sulfides and sulfuric acid seasonally.  Sulfides are greater in the heat of summer and sulfuric acid in colder conditions.  It is this acid that once dissolved the bottom (not top) of metal canal gates and is written up extensively when canals were commercially important (See US Army Corps EM 1110-2-6054, Section 2-1).  This sulfide-sulfuric acid condition has been long known in the marine environment, only small boat fishers called it the "dead bottoms."  These areas produced few fish as compared to live bottoms in the historical fisheries literature.  These were areas with high organics that supported bacteria that utilized the compound sulfate SO₄ as a source of respiration oxygen.  These were the organic matter composters of high heat and low dissolved oxygen, and to use oxygen, they break the sulfate compound apart and throw away the sulfur, which complexes with hydrogen ions to form H₂S, the hydrogen sulfide that smells like rotten eggs.  When elemental oxygen is reintroduced, sulfuric acid can form, damaging metal structures.  This was discovered in the 1960's and mentioned as a result of the construction of "dead end canals," areas that contained tidal water but lacked strong flows or had "poor" flushing (See "The Evaluation of Aeration as a Method for Improving the Ecological Condition of Dead-End Canals," Delaware Coastal Programs DNERR, 2002).  These canals, often constructed for fill and coastal development, suffer from thermocline (layer) formation in long hot summers.  Residents living near them often report strong sulfur smells during long intense head waves in the 1990's.  They represent important site-specific studies that resemble embayments that suffer from natural poor flushing (i.e., dams or poorly designed rail and road causeways) often found in coves and bays having restricted circulation within coastal waters.  In such, they create situations similar to dead end canals with the formation of a black sulfide containing organic ooze more properly described as a sapropel.  These areas often have a long connection to a sea with barrier beaches.  As such, they act as collection basins for organic matter from land and sea.  The 2002 report (Delaware Coastal Programs DNERR mentioned above, 28 pp., Torquay Canal and Bald Eagle Creek, Robert W. Scarborough, author) contains the following segment on pp. 16-17 (when microbial appears, think bacteria – T. Visel):

 Hydrogen Sulfide Analysis –
"In the deep holes or Torquay Canal and Bald Eagle Creek, the available dissolved oxygen is quickly consumed by the benthic microbial activity.  The stratification of the water column prevents replenishment of the lower water column with oxygen rich water from the surface.  Once there is no more available DO (dissolved oxygen, T. Visel) for aerobic microbial activity, anaerobic microbes (bacteria, T. Visel) begin to flourish.  These microbes reduce sulfate (SO₄^-2) to sulfide (S^-2) typically in the form of hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) to maintain their existence.  The hydrogen sulfide that is produced in the process is extremely toxic to marine life, it inhibits the enzyme that allows cells to use oxygen during energy metabolism.  The high concentration of hydrogen sulfide coupled with the absence of DO create a lethal environment for most marine life."

While researchers often point to the 1950s and 1960s as a time when eelgrass grew thick (and at times had some negative consequences), this was during a period of numerous strong coastal storms and hurricanes.  It was also a time of much colder temperatures.  Winters were longer and ice-filled.  Cold seawater holds more dissolved oxygen so the chances of sulfide formation are lessened and oxygen-requiring bacteria dominate the bacterial spectrum.  Sulfate-requiring bacteria are pushed out to the deep composts sealed from oxygen.  This was explained to me by John Hammond, a retired oyster farmer from Chatham, Massachusetts, as the "sulfur deadline."  This is the level in water and soil in which sulfide can kill oxygen life, such as clams, oysters and at times bay scallops.  This can happen from hot seawater (late August in our area) or under ice in water (described as a pond or lake "winter kill").

What is often not fully explained is that sulfide is the smoke of an intense bacterial battle between bacterial strains that utilize oxygen in elemental forms – those bacteria that use oxygen compounds (such as sulfate and nitrogen compounds) and those that do not need oxygen at all, often described as "primitive bacteria" but I prefer to use the term as "the first bacteria"- the methanogens.  These bacteria live in the environments that oxygen bacteria cannot survive and waste methane gas, the most destructive climate gas.

In general, the deeper the compost, the chances that it will become pore-filled with purges of toxic sulfide increases.  When eelgrass builds a deep peat of sealed organics away from oxygen, it creates opportunities for toxic sulfide.  Over time and in heat, sulfide purges into the water and gives off an odor or "smell."  When that happens, a sulfide fish kill can happen if sulfide interacts to form sulfuric acid.  When this happens rapidly, it is sometimes termed a "violent soil."  This sulfuric acid then destroys eelgrass root tissue and prevents the sets of bivalves.  Many times the sulfide is formed by this compost by the ability of eelgrass to form (the terrestrial equivalent in turf monocultures is termed black layer disease) monocultures.

In other words, the presence of eelgrass can trap organics and, in that way, assist sulfide formation.  Submerged aquatic vegetation researchers first raised this sulfide concern in the 1990s.  These sulfide-organic accounts rarely make it into eelgrass research today, which only accentuates the need to re-examine the role or roles eelgrass has in shallow habitats.  Withholding or ignoring past restoration trial research or selecting only references that supports a predetermined position is a form of research misconduct, rare but increasingly apparent in many eelgrass reports and is termed "citation amnesia" – my view, Tim Visel.  
 
Introduction
The Chemistry of a Sulfur Cycle Habitat Change
More of the recent research around submerged grasses has focused upon the bacteria that grows below them.  That is a positive sign that climate is being included for habitat study.  But these habitat quality indicators do "cycle" and are influenced by temperature and energy (i.e., they can change over time).  While many reports mention productive habitat capacity and seafood catch levels few mention the chemistry of habitat quality for marine composts and marine soils in high heat.  This is a concern as so much attention to a warming climate has been reported in the media.  The impact of heat to marine composts is vastly under reported - my view, Tim Visel.  Just a few degrees can vastly change habitat chemistry especially in shallow water important habitats for fish and shellfish.  This lack of focus is a question especially for the amount of recent media coverage of warming waters.  What makes it more concerning is that this general condition has happened before.

In the 1890's, a warming climate had caused an increased interest in finding a shipping route around the North Pole Polar ice cap.  By 1903, the Northwest passage was opening from polar ice melting.  It was navigated in 1906 and reopened in 2007.  It is a seaway that only becomes navigable in the warmest of summers as Rachel Carson wrote in her book titled "The Sea Around Us" in 1958.  Following is a short segment of her work:

"It is now established beyond question that a definite change in the arctic climate set in about 1900.  It became astonishingly marked about 1930 and at present it is spreading into the sub artic and temperature regions.  The ice top of the world is very clearly warming up.  We see it best of all in the fact that navigation is easier in the North Atlantic and the Arctic Sea.  In 1932, for example, a vessel sailed around Franz Josef land, an island in the very high arctic, for the first time in history."

Measuring the extent of sea ice and icebergs has been an important climate indicator.  Another possible indicator may be the bacterial composition (chemistry) of shallow water.  These are known as the dead bottoms in the fisheries history.

Fifty years before Rachel Carson's "The Sea Around Us," the arctic region had already become a topic of interest, first the last hunting ground for the whale and then the race to discover the North Pole.  In the long artic search – Voyage Narrative of Frederick Schwatka 1965- The Marine Historical Association Mystic, CT has these sections under "Bound for Hudson's Bay" has this section (my comments, T. Visel):

"At midnight on July 19, 1878, I was able to read the type of Harpers Weekly in the strong twilight of the north and this seemed to place us nearer our goal.  If these perpetual fogs will only give us their concept we could proceed without constant fear of icebergs, pack ice or badly charted shoals and shores.
On the 24^th (of July – T. Visel) we enjoyed the singular sensation of promenading the Schooner's deck in a mid-summer snow storm, buttoned up to the chin in our winter clothes.

All that night, we could hear the dull booming of the distant ice as though pounding away in his work of destruction."
A review of how climate alters our observations is needed.  This is especially true about the cycle of eelgrass that is connected to marine soil chemistry.  That chemistry is subject to temperature and energy.  This chemistry, especially around the formation of soil sulfide, has not been adequately explained to the public – my view, Tim Visel.

The Eelgrass Dead Soils and Marine Compost Chemistry
A historical review for eelgrass shows that it is cyclic and reaches peak densities many years after strong storms.  A series or period of storms destroy mature meadows while cultivating marine soils for future growths.  It was John Hammond (1980's), who introduced me to the concept of habitat clocks (habitat succession).  He observed that cold to warm periods favored eelgrass to reach up into shallow waters where it trapped organic matter without storms.  It would rise and then reduce flushing and, over time, choke out bottom species such as the hard and soft-shell clams.  Mr. Hammond felt that such storms allowed eelgrass to live in areas that would naturally die off in high heat from a soil "sulfide deadline."  Eelgrass would, over time, also trap small soil particles, such as clays, and change the soil chemistry by reducing pore soil circulation.  His theory of soil circulation was largely confirmed in 2019 by Erin Aiello in a January 11, 2019 report titled "Factors That Affect Eelgrass Growth in Morro Bay #3 Sediment and Light Differences Part 1" (Morro Bay National Estuary Program).  Following is a segment that details this aspect (my comments, T. Visel): (This is a very good report, T. Visel)

From Aiello (2019) –
"If sediment (think soil, T. Visel) is too fine, there is little room between the particles, so gas, nutrient and water exchange at the plant's roots is limited.  Essentially, this makes it difficult for the plant (eelgrass, T. Visel) to eat and breathe.  If your sediment (soil, T. Visel) is too coarse, nutrients wash out of the sediment (soil, T. Visel) quickly, and plants growing in the soil can easily be removed.

For example, clay has very fine sediment (soil, T. Visel) texture and can hold tightly to roots (eelgrass, T. Visel) while sand has coarse particles and cannot.  Different plants have their own sweet spot of sediment (soil, T. Visel) texture, and for eelgrass, that sweet spot is arguably between one percent and twelve percent clay.  There is a scientific consensus that fifteen percent clay is too much clay for sustaining eelgrass."

The ability of eelgrass to hold dead plant tissue also in heat provides a culture media for iron and sulfur bacteria – confirming Mr. Hammond's thought about the toxic impacts he witnessed during a raft culture study of oysters in Oyster Pond River in the late 1950's.

Mr. Hammond assisted William N. Shaw, Fishery Research Biologist, in a study titled "Raft Culture of Oysters in Massachusetts," Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Fishery Bulletin #197, Vol. 61, 1962.  Mr. Hammond's participation in the study is mentioned on pg. 481 "J.C. Hammond, commercial oyster grower, whose help in construction and maintenance of the raft made this project possible."  Mr. Hammond detailed that raft oysters hung on wires that touched the bottom, died and were stained black.  Ice had formed on the Oyster Pond River, creating a "sulfur deadline" during the winter of 1958 (This winter is in the records as the Cold Wave of 1957-1958 that largely destroyed the Florida citrus crop).  The raft was moved by a storm onto an area of soft bottom.  Mr. Hammond had seen this deadline impact on recreational boating moorings and described in IMEP #128: Sulfur and Iron Bacteria Linked to Seafood Death, posted October 8, 2023, The Blue Crab Forum^TM, Fishing, Eeling and Oystering thread.   These oysters in the organic ooze had all died.

Mr. Hammond cultured seed oysters (mostly from the Hammonasset River, Clinton, CT - See Galtsoff 1964, pg. 93) on the firm sandy areas of the Oyster Pond River, but in the late 1970's, the bottom became softer.  Shaw notes on page 483 that in some areas "the bottom is soft with a high percentage of silt and clay."
As the bottom became softer, sulfide (sulfur) smells increased and a 1970 dredging project was once halted because of strong rotten egg smells emanating from the dredge spoils (See IMEP #41: Shellfish Habitats Collapse on Cape Cod in High Heat 1974-1984," posted December 19, 2014, The Blue Crab Forum^TM, Fishing, Eeling and Oystering thread).

Mr. Hammond felt that eelgrass was dying from changing soil conditions resulting from organic composting even though under water.  That created a sulfur-rich bottom and was studying the culture of rice in tropical regions as a comparison to eelgrass soil conditions.  In warm weather, the sulfide levels were so high that they became noticeable as the frequent reference to the "smell of rotting eggs" in the fisheries historical literature.

The impact of warm temperature, increasing sulfate-reducing bacteria strains and soil chemistry (iron compounds) upon eelgrass were reviewed in IMEP #121: Why Eelgrass Transplants Fail 1935 to 2020" posted April 23, 2023, The Blue Crab Forum^TM, Fishing, Eeling and Oystering thread.
In time, warm or hot marine soils became "dead" to eelgrass in terms of survival.                   

Nature and Policy
One of the factors we need to address is the conflict between nature and policy.  This is an old conflict and not new.  We have a need to "improve" upon nature in order to survive.  To protect us from the natural world we build shelter – a home or other structures that insulate us from the dangers of rapid change – cold or heat, rain and snow and the greatest danger, fire.  It is policy to flight these extremes, floods for example as the "common enemy" doctrines of modern civilizations.

A century ago, coastal wharfs and sea walls were just rebuilt after storms.  This accelerated around the 1920s in Long Island Sound as shore property was converted from farms to seasonal summer communities.  After that happened, the beliefs about and value of coastal property soon changed.
Sea level rise has been constant feature of the Atlantic coast since the ice sheet retreated.  The tide has been rising for centuries, claiming the shore and submerging the coast.  The rise of water also caused the shoreline to retreat and now changed public policy.

This change in public policies can be seen over long periods of time.  The 1929 State Geological and Natural History Survey (Bulletin #46 W.F. Britton editors – author Henry Staats Sharp highlights this change as shorelines were developed.  Page 13 has this section under "Growing Interest In Shore Protection":
"When the sea washed away a beach occupied by nothing but poison ivy, no one noticed the change, but when a beach covered by a row of cottages is partly destroyed there are many to object and to fight the forces of destruction."

After the 1938 Hurricane, coastal erosion policies was clearly with the value of shore property and evidenced by the federal legislation called the Flood and Erosion Control Acts of the 1950's.

The federal 1972 Coastal Zone Act reversed many of these erosion control policies.  However, in 2012, Connecticut reversed its position on shoreline protection by passing a "Living Shoreline Act" allowing shorefront owners the chance to install stone sills and reef balls to moderate storm energy and reduce erosion of beaches.  Eelgrass is now being promoted to slow coastal erosion (which it can for a short time) but these benefits need to be measured by storm leaf loss and seasonal shedding of leaves that once plagued coastal beachgoers in the 1960's. 

This aspect of eelgrass fouling beaches is frequently missing from recent eelgrass reports.  Removing heavy dense wracks of eelgrass became such an issue in the late 1960's that New York Sea Grant funded a study titled "Fourteen Selected Marine Resource Problems of Long Island New York Descriptive Evaluations" (Coastal Zone Information Center, Sea Grant Project GH63-1970).  One resource problem was to examine dead eelgrass removal from shorelines.  Page 31 of the report contains this segment (my comments, T. Visel):

"Control of the grass (eelgrass, T. Visel) is generally aimed at the collection of floating masses of broken off leaves or the removal of the accumulated plants washed up on the beaches and shorelines.  Amphibious scavengers equipped with mechanically operated booms and rakes are available for the effective removal of floating grass (eelgrass, T. Visel) from the water and beaches of the bay."

The smell of eelgrass wracklines became so severe that New York experimented with clay pellets soaked in the herbicide Benclor-3 as in other states to control eelgrass growths (See pg. 31 of the above reference).  John Hammond on Cape Cod described participating in a similar clay pellet process in Pleasant Bay, Massachusetts (personal communication Tim Visel, early 1980's).

Another example of and one directly connected to changes in "Public Policy" can be seen with the subtidal vegetation in shallow bays and rivers.  The State of Massachusetts commissioned a series of bulletins (called the monograph series) regard marine resources of coastal harbors, bays, and rivers.
These soft bound bulletins have been an enormous help in constructing past habitat and fishery conditions.  Overall I have found them balanced as presenting observations matched by those in the shellfish industry.  This is quite noticeable in regards to eelgrass and its movement into shellfish habitats.  The study of the Westport River (May, 1968) lists some of the negative aspects of eelgrass – page 43:

"While eelgrass in moderate density is favorable in many respects to marine life excessive growths in many of our coastal areas are hampering commercial shellfishing operating by clogging scallop dredges and interfering with the raking and tonging of quahogs and oysters on what was once clear bottoms."

And further –
"Today, the distribution of eelgrass is perhaps more extensive than it has ever been in the last century." 
These bulletins mention efforts to control eelgrass with under water mowers, herbicides (similar to the recent Phragmites efforts) all conditions associated with dense eelgrass growths, causing small scallop meat size and suffocating of mussels, clams and oysters.  (In the 1960's, Canada started research on the control of eelgrass overtaking and killing oyster beds).  However, public policy now changed and this change can be reflected in these marine bulletins.  After 1972, no mention of the negative impacts of eelgrass can be found.  The study of Wellfleet Harbor (April, 1972) mentioned the lack of clear bottom for quahogs but did not connect it to eelgrass.  After 1973, eelgrass was praised for attributes it was criticized just a few years before.  A half century later eelgrass would be suggested as the plant "that could save the planet."   

We could learn about climate by following the fish and the shallow waters show the changes first.  They experience the cold and heat and can be studied easier as long as we have a guide to understand them – my view, T. Visel.

Some features of shallow waters include for bay scallops a short-lived species energy plays a critical role in shallow bays and coves.
·     Subject to frequent "habitat" failures – not reproduction ones the Niantic Bay scallop fishery, for example. (See Nelson Marshall)
·     To compensate scallops can be moved to more suitable "habitats."  Schools of scallops reported by the Walston family out by Faulkner's Island – Guilford, CT 1950's-1960's (T. Visel communications with Nathan Walston)
·     Sandra MacFarlane – notes that the Orleans/Chatham area scallop production 30,000 bu. in 1976 and 40,000 bu. in 1983 only to have "blanks" two years following?
 
 
Do We Have Objectivity in Eelgrass Research?
 
When people think of pollution, they may think of a sewage pipe or smoke stack.  These images you can point out; in time, these become known as pollution "point sources" and they had an owner.  To gather public opinion (and later grant funding), these point sources were identified as pollution threats.  (many were) Similar to the common enemy doctrine of the 1950s and 1960s – the environmental cause needed "enemies" to garner public opinion and sustain funding.  Some anti-pollution efforts, therefore, went after "easy" point sources while some went to the courts for pollution damages.  Because industry used machinery, almost all factories used lubrication oils and many had coal-fired boilers.  Even schools once had coal-fired boilers.  I can remember hours spent in the play yard of Mount Carmel Elementary School (today, a housing complex in Hamden, CT), digging up and examining chunks of unburnt coal.  I was fascinated by its shiny surfaces and deep black color.  It was much lighter than a rock of the same size.  I spent hours digging holes in search of these coal chunks and recall on many occasions being advised by recess teaching staff not to do so.  I did not often abide by these directives and when moving to Madison, CT in 1964, some of the coal chunks went along as well.  I was fascinated by coal and used to watch Mr. Fowler on Cannon Street have coal dropped off  just a few houses down.  A long metal shute poured coal into the basement, and at that time, people still put the "clinkers" on driveways with coal ash. 
 
One of the features of coal is that it did pollute and besides the soot, it released sulfur compounds back into the air.  Coal, a natural substance, now took on the position of being a polluter – from this sulfide/sulfur release, a toxic sulfur dioxide "smoke."  Smoke stacks of coal-fired plants could be found in the late 1960s textbooks, and made it easy to see the point source.  When we burned coal, we took on the pollution concept, three decades later it would be nitrogen.  The 1970's had polarized America's public opinion from economic development to conservation, and at the same time, sought to cleanse water and air of pollutants – even at times natural substances such as nitrogen.
 
In this case, we didn't burn nitrogen to produce a smoke.  Instead, it was delivered to soils to spur plant growth.  This, at first, had been reported to be a great thing – a "green revolution" promoted to grow more food to an ever increasing, it seemed, hungry human population – from about 1966 until 1978.  (Norman Borlaug is credited with the foundation of nitrogen enhancement combined with plant genetics and pest control).  But in many areas, nitrogen was over-applied and excess nitrogen washed by rain into water courses.  What had been promoted as something "good" in time became associated with negative environmental impacts.
 
The same could be true for eelgrass, a marine plant that lives under water but shares many of its terrestrial plant counterparts – it can form a monoculture, and in so doing, eliminates other habitat types.  In efforts to garner public opinion and policy support contingent to pollution awareness, nitrogen became a key substance that caused eelgrass to decline or "die out."  Its presence (eelgrass) was often claimed to be a good monoculture and helpful to marine organisms and seafood abundance.  However, I have reports in which New England states had programs to destroy eelgrass rather than restore or enhance it.  I was also fortunate to meet with many small boat shellfishers, who shared reports and observations that they once shoveled clay pellets soaked in herbicides over it with state permission to kill eelgrass.  But it's difficult for many to think of eelgrass as destructive as Phragmites (another invasive strain) that, in the recent past, has had similar chemical removal/elimination programs.
 
In the 1940s, Fish and Wildlife researchers concluded that we had different eelgrass strains but ignored soil science study and why nearly all eelgrass transplants had failed.  At the time, changing climate/soil conditions were not considered.
 
As for who could conduct that soil research today, that is a difficult question.  I feel that much of the eelgrass research has been tilted toward supporting policy rather than being objective to its good and not so good attributes.  After 1972, it often was highlighted as only having good attributes and connected to human actions to its decline.  This is where coal comes back into play – that the sulfur in coal was put there by sulfate bacteria and this process takes millions of years but starts in habitats that eelgrass helps make – a low oxygen, marine compost rich in sulfide, a sapropel.  Eelgrass, by its ability to gather organics in shallow habitats, fosters sulfide releases from sapropel, the organic base material of coal.  The soil chemistry was not a part of the 1940's transplant programs, a complete opposite of terrestrial soil study with agriculture.
 
"Marine Soils": A Need to Look at Soil Conditions for Eelgrass Growths
 
Because of a near absence of the sulfate/sulfur cycle we have a bias of cold high oxygen water quality conditions applied to research conducted in great heat.  In addition in cold we may not understand the change in habitat quality and long to rebuild warm water species when their habitat clock had long run out.  This bias continues today in many research reports that reflect snap shot ecology that define habitat conditions during the brief time period in which the research was conducted.  The best example (or worst depending upon point of view I suppose) is the eelgrass bay scallop relationship.  Here a snapshot, the presence of small bay scallops setting on clean green eelgrass blades, would be associated with good bay scallop habitats.  However, when you look at a longer time period and other habitat parameters other than just presence or absence, and compare habitat dominance and biochemical attributes of climate cycles one would exactly the opposite habitat relationship – high periods of eelgrass dominance occur in heat with little storms (habitat stability) and bay scallops just the opposite, they prefer much energy (storms) and colder seawater – unstable habitat conditions in our viewpoint.
 
In the 1900's when summers were hot and eelgrass grew in immense coastal meadows, the bay scallop crop nearly disappeared.  Although their habitat clocks overlap at some point and lacking the real scallop grass, a corraline red, scallops will set on eelgrass as a substitute but not preferred plant spat collector.  As the heat continued into the 1910's, eelgrass meadows declined.  When the 1920's came, colder water and strong storms ripped out eelgrass as storms intensified.  Oxygen was driven into sulfide soils producing acidic conditions.  That change alone could impact the chemistry of the soil and influence the growth of plants.  Plants are sensitive to sulfide, it is also a plant toxin that has an impact on salt meadow cordgrass Spartina patens as well as the submerged grass we call eelgrass.  Terrestrial soils also exhibit the toxic impact of sulfide, frequently termed black layer disease.  Black layer disease is widely known in the US terrestrial turf industry.
 
Consider the segment on Penn State's Turf Pest Diagnostic Laboratory titled "Black layer":
 
"Black layer is a symptom associated with anaerobic conditions in the soil, characterized by the formation of black layers or pockets within the soil profile.  These layers are composed of metal sulfides, primarily ferrous sulfide, indicating the presence of sulfur-reducing bacteria such as Desulfovibrio spp.  When oxygen is lacking, these bacteria convert elemental sulfur into hydrogen sulfide gas, which is toxic to turfgrass roots and contributes to turf decline."
 
One of the treatments to help keep turfgrasses alive is to "consider spoon-feeding with nitrate forms of nitrogen to temporarily increase soil redox potential."  In this case, the turfgrass can use nitrate as a secondary source of oxygen.  It was nitrate that became limiting in George Field's study of Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island in the massive heat waves of 1896 to 1900.  He noted that as the algae that needed nitrate and was the primary forage for shellfish had declined, he experimented with adding nitrate to the seawater.  He observed strong sulfide smells during these heat waves (See George Wilton Field, The Utilization of Waste Products: The Nitrogen Problem Part 1, Agricultural Experiment Station, Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanics, 1898, 62 pp.).  He also noted that Point Judith Pond started to smell "bad."  In 1900, he supported a permanent breachway into Point Judith Pond to reduce stagnation. (In 1903, Dr. Field would have a critical role in the Lobster Convention of 1903, following an 1898 southern New England lobster die-off).
 
The same is true for aquaculture soils, some soils sandy and containing mixed shell hash or bits of bivalve shell make a great soil for eelgrass.  In cold and in patches, it adds a habitat type that holds both forage and prey species.  It has reef habitat aspects as well.  However, after a period of habitat succession and in heat, over time, eelgrass habitat services of gathering organics become negative to oxygen requiring life and directly changes the chemistry of aquaculture soils to those of acid sulfate soils having a vegetative crust.  If an eelgrass strain carried specific traits for energy and temperature, it could be damaged by long periods of heat and little dissolved oxygen from soil cultivation.  This also explains why clams and eelgrass often were noted as impacting each other after storm events in the shellfish industry literature, especially those who grew clams noting soil conditions:
 
"If cultivating agricultural fields before planting a new crop of potatoes or corn is essential to the commercial success of an agricultural farm, wouldn't the same apply to clam seeding activities for an aquacultural farm? The benefits of cultivating and enriching the soils for agricultural activities are well-known and special treatment for specific crops are readily available. This knowledge and various applications have evolved from many decades of research, development and trials." (See Sea Bottom Treatment Helps Clams, Atlantic Fish Farming, July 21, 1997 pg. 18)
 
To understand this soil-air interaction, we can look at past agricultural practices.
 
 
Cultural Entities Denmark's Mound Agriculture
 
The Marsh at Brede A and Vidaen by Charlotte Lindhardt and John Frederiksen
in coastal sections of the North Sea, lowlands contained coastal swamps (polders), which early farmers heaped up peat above ground, allowing oxygen to enter creating conditions for bacteria growths.  Once this happened, they could be farmed as noted as an early Danish agricultural "mound culture."
 
"In comparison to the rest of the Wadden Sea are the dwelling mounds are both small and recent.  In the Danish port (Husum in Germany), however, it is quite exceptional to have approximately limited area, as can be found on the Tonder Marsh.  Many of the mounds are no longer inhabited, but remain as proof of mankind's eagerness to exploit the fertile soil." (pg. 19, Cultural Entities Danish Wadden Sea Islands, 2007)
 
Placing organic matter as to allow air to enter it provided the bacterial growths that helped plants grow.  In the coastal coves and salt ponds, this aeration occurred hydraulically by the motion found in waves and strong currents.  While composts could build in tidal regions, especially those with reduced flushing, this could set in motion a habitat clock as described to me by John C. Hammond that eelgrass would not survive in a low-oxygen, high-sulfide habitat.  After a storm or driven "new sand" in a barrier beach break, eelgrass grew thick after a few years.  According to Mr. Hammond, good growing conditions existed for some years, but as eelgrass became thick, it started to rise and create a layer of organics below it.  In heat, this composting process smelled badly – the presence of sulfides increased and eelgrass soon began to die back or die off.  This habitat clock described a cycle that followed climate periods, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).
 
Eelgrass Soils and Compost
 
The warming of seawater tends to shift bacterial composting of estuarine organic matter to iron and sulfur bacteria and even pathogenic strains of vibrio.  Several recent reports have highlighted organic matter and submerged vegetation – including eelgrass (See Sediment and Vegetation as Reservoirs of Vibrio vulnificus in The Tampa Bay Estuary and Gulf of Mexico – Chase et al., Applied Environment Microbiology, April 2015, Vol. 81, #7, 2489-2494).  And Vibrio has been reported to live on or near eelgrass roots. 
 
In discussions with John Hammond 1981-1983, he was convinced that thick eelgrass was detrimental to shellfish and helped produce sulfides.  Although he had long since retired from oyster culture, he was studying eelgrass blades and how eelgrass lives in shallow water.  In 1983, he was studying rice culture, especially how the roots functioned under water and its relationship to the sulfur cycle.  At the time, I underestimated the sulfur cycle and its importance to root growth and health.  I was wrong – reviewing the chemistry of rice to eelgrass (both plants grow in water-soaked soils) the role of sulfur-sulfate is extremely important.  This importance was confirmed almost two decades later in a FEMS Microbiology Ecology #36, 2001, pp. 175-183 titled "Structure And Diversity of Gram-Negative Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria on Rice Roots" by Daniel Scheid and Stephen Stubner – Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology.  This paper reviewed the sulfate reduction under water by anaerobic bacteria during the degradation of organic matter – some of those were identified as Desulfovibrionaceae and prevalent amongst rice plant roots.  Other researchers are finding vibrio strains on eelgrass blades as well as amongst its roots.  These bacterial strains use sulfate as an electron acceptor and in the process utilize oxygen bound to sulfur.  Vibrio strains can cause seafood disease that inshore fishers first reported in the late 1970's.  Lobstermen from Rhode Island reported catching lobsters near sewage dumps in the Hudson River Canyon in 1975-76.  These lobsters had sections of missing shell we call today "shell disease." These vibrio bacteria break down the chiton – the hard polysaccharide that forms the shell of crabs and oysters.  They can break down chiton (dissolve) and therefore termed "chitinolytic" strains.  They were found in organic-rich sewage deposits of New York and associated with organic soils with greater than 10% organic matter content.
 
Winter flounder fishers, especially those that once fished Boston Harbor and Quincy Bay in the 1980's, noticed that large flounder had lesions or open sores around the tail and fins.  This was also associated by a growing smelly mucky bottom.  At first, this organic deposit was seen to increase organic composters we call worms.  In this case, the Polychaetes worms that can survive in a wide temperature range – simply more compost – more worms. This increase in organic compost, at first, favors worm populations in it – and becomes an important food for winter flounder and benefits them up to a point.  This point is often termed the respiration compensation point when bacterial composting takes all the available elemental oxygen.  This is assisted by increasing heat and opens the door to sulfate bacteria, including those that dissolve proteins of living flesh – evidenced by winter flounder experiencing "fin rot."  This caused the bleeding fins or oozing tail infections of Vibrio alginolyticus, which then opened the door to compost fungal strains (infection).  I can recall many winter flounder fishers bringing caught fish to me at the University of Connecticut Sea Grant Office, asking if these winter flounder were good to eat in the mid-1980's.  What fishers were experiencing was a dramatic bacterial shift supported by an increasing marine organic compost.  This organic compost, at first, enhanced predator/prey relationships, causing a boom in winter flounder before it overwhelmed oxygen bacteria.  Then, as a result what was a "good" habitat turned quickly "bad."
 
A 1985 workshop titled "NOAA Estuary of the Month Seminar Series #3 Long Island Sound: Issues, Resources, Status and Management" (Proceedings printed in 1987) held at the Main Auditorium US Department of Commerce, May 10, 1983, had Dr. Donald Rhoads, Department of Yale, present a paper titled "The Benthic Ecosystem."  On page 56 of Dr. Rhoads paper, as published in the proceedings, is found the following segment (my comments, T. Visel):
 
"I want to leave you with an interesting thought about oxygen-organism relationships.  Secondary benthic production can be very high in the hypoxic (low to no oxygen, T. Visel) and dysaerobic (low oxygen, T. Visel) zones, a phenomenon related to the abundance and high turnover rate of enrichment species (polychaete worms, T. Visel) that dominate these zones.  This production (mainly polychaetes) may attract and support enhanced populations of benthic foragers such as demersal fish (winter flounder, T. Visel) and crustaceans (lobsters, T. Visel) ... The immediate perception may be one of increased catch per unit effort by fishermen.  As a result (the growth of sapropel, T. Visel), maximum commercial yields may be obtained just before there is a crash in the exploited populations."           
 
This condition describes almost precisely the increase in winter flounder until 1988 (CT) and lobsters that nearly tripled catches between 1988 and 1998, both of which suddenly crashed.  What was the indicator for these benthic species – a complete or nearly complete habitat failure in shallow water (nursery) habitats.  Quite simply, larger adults had more food while a recruitment failure of the young occurred.  We noticed this as were trawling off Hammonasset Beach for winter flounder using a 30-foot Wilcox "flat" net.  When we started trawling in 1971, we caught only large fish in 15 to 20 feet of water.  However, by 1981, we were throwing back most flounder, some only 2 to 3 inches long and heavily being predated upon by bluefish.  They were driven from the shallow waters because they were now oxygen-limited.  It was getting hotter and sapropel accumulated over what was previously "hard bottoms."  The conditions that Dr. Rhoads described happened almost exactly to these benthic species.  It is the shallow water habitats that are most impacted by heat and low energy.
 
For the bay scallop, there was no way to offset the toxic effects of sulfide in the water.  They had only one response – to swim.  It's this ability and only a general response over short distances within a bay or cove.  I recall listening to Dana Eldridge, who mentioned one night that all the bay scallops moved from the Chatham side to the Orleans side of Pleasant Bay overnight.  The conflict of crossing the line almost caused some firearms being drawn by scallopers arguing over the crop (Dana Eldridge, personal communications to T. Visel, early 1980's).  In heat with waters calm (history records often refer to as "stagnant"), sulfide levels build so that they can become dissolved in seawater and become airborne.  This is the "rotten egg smell" mentioned so many times in the shellfish history literature and some more recently.  Consider the 2003 fish kill of Greenwich Bay, part of Narragansett Bay – here, softshell clams died by the millions and a few years before, small fish kills were often proceeded by "grey colored water and hydrogen sulfide odors" (Chris Deacutis, Providence Journal, August 20, 2013).  Bay scallops are extremely sensitive to sulfide in the water, and in heat, low-oxygen environments favor the use of sulfate as a source of oxygen and iron sulfide, and if thick enough, can color the water black.  A thick organic compost can become a sapropel rich in sulfide.  A small sample taken can emit powerful sulfide smells.
 
Additional studies indicate that as the depth of eelgrass peat increases it isolates bacterial composting from access to elemental oxygen dissolved in seawater.  A sapropel then forms and sulfate bacterial metabolism (bacteria that use sulfate as an oxygen source) can purge increasing amounts of hydrogen sulfide.  Several reports have mentioned the tendency of eelgrass to collect Vibrio on its blades – almost a combing effect from seawater.  The tendency has now reported on waste plastic, that Vibrio species adheres to plastic in large numbers and is also found on the surface of Sargassum seaweed off the coast of Florida first identified in 2011 (See Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute).  Eelgrass has been shown to collect terrestrial organic matter or sugars in cellulose that bacteria need to consume, eelgrass meadows in heat, therefore, may contain a pathogenic pool or population of dangerous bacteria including vibrio species.  I describe this as a warm water "compost disease syndrome."  This eelgrass compost bacterial process tends to utilize sulfate as an electron acceptor and is facilitated in high heat and lower amounts of dissolved oxygen.  Studies four decades ago clearly illustrated the "bacterial war" that was occurring in eelgrass peat between oxygen preferring and sulfate preferring bacteria (See "Heterotrophic Bacteria Associated with Eelgrass, Zostera Marina, Rhizosphere and Their Antibacterial Activity, Shieh et al., May 12, 1986).  Perhaps the most perplexing is that terrestrial composting is often studied and information easily available but not considered for marine soils (See IMEP #121: Why Eelgrass Transplants Fail, posted April 23, 2023, The Blue Crab Forum^TM).
 
In turf management, it is called black layer disease.  A "black layer" develops in the turf (grass) root zone.  This can happen in soaked high peat soils and often on golf course greens.  Low oxygen creates the black layer as anaerobic bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide and stains the root zone black from iron sulfide FeS.
 
A 2016 article titled "Black Layer – Winning the War, One Battle at a Time" contains this description:
 
"Black layer develops when oxygen levels in the soil drop because of saturated soil conditions.  This normally occurs in low cut, fine turf areas and is especially damaging to turf roots.  As the roots decline, turf health is seriously diminished, and thin, weak turf soon forms at the surface."
 
This condition can also happen in marine soils and greatly impacts eelgrass.  Warm water and heat waves can accelerate high sulfide eelgrass dieoffs – my view, Tim Visel.
 
 

Appendix #1

Microbial Community Stability in Anoxic Sediments Under Conditions of Shifting Salinity, Oxygen and Sulfate

Libusha Kelly, MIT

Microbial Diversity, 2010

 

Abstract:
Microbial interactions in anoxic communities play a role in the construction and maintenance of many environments, including marshes, wastewater treatment plants, and the human mouth.  To explore the factors that cause community shifts and those that encourage stability in microbial communities, we enriched the anaerobic microbial populations from two anoxic sediments under conditions of high and low salinity.  After a preliminary enrichment phase, we further perturbed a subset of enrichments by amendment with sulfate and oxygen.  Physiological and genetic analysis indicated that the initial inocula from both sites contained a diverse community of bacteria and archae, including expected members like sulfate reducing bacteria, methanogens, and acetogens.  Our results suggest that oxygen had the most destabilizing effect of all perturbations on the methanogens and acetogens in the enrichments; sulfate amendment did not impact community composition and activity as severely.  Salinity appeared to have an effect on community composition and response; the saltwater incubations were consistently more affected under perturbation than the freshwater enrichments.  Finally, the sulfate reducing bacterial populations were more stable to perturbation generally than methanogen and actogen populations.

Appendix #2

Establishing restoration objectives for eelgrass in Long Island Sound. Part I: Review of the seagrass literature relevant to Long Island Sound

Report to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and the US EPA. 58 pp.

By Jamie M. P. Vaudrey (2008)

 

NATURAL CYCLE OF LOSS & RECOVERY
In 1995, a poorly-flushed, restricted sub-estuary (Turnbull Bay) in the northern Indian River Lagoon, FL experienced a shift in seagrass species from Halodule wrightii to Ruppia maritima, coincident with increasing macroalgae biomass.  Over 100ha of seagrass disappeared from 1996 to 1997.  By 2000, seagrass had returned to its pre-perturbation levels.  This decline in seagrass was not linked to water quality issues or to a natural or anthropogenic catastrophic event.  Morris and Virnstein (2004) proposed that the loss of seagrass was part of a natural cycle, where decaying seagrass and macroalgae accumulate in beds, creating an organic ooze which stresses the eelgrass by raising sulfide levels in the sediments.  Anoxia in the sediments and the accompanying high sulfide levels cause the seagrass to become loosely attached and eventually to fail.  Without the seagrass and associated rhizome mat to hold the ooze in place, the decaying organic matter can be flushed out of the embayment under storm conditions.  Removal of the organic matter leaves behind an embayment with a primarily mineral sediment, ready for recolonization by seagrass. (Morris and Virnstein 2004)
 

Appendix #3

EPA Long Island Sound Study Research Grant Program

2020 Research Project Descriptions

Projects will take place from 2021 to 2023

Improving Eelgrass Restoration Success by Manipulating the Sediment Iron Cycle

 

Investigators: Craig Tobias and Jamie Vaudrey, University of Connecticut; Chris Pickerell, Cornell Cooperative Extension
 Grant Award: $323,404, plus $161,786 in matching funds
"While many Long Island Sound embayments now have improved water quality that should make them suitable for eelgrass restoration, there is a difference between the acreage of habitat that could theoretically support eelgrass and where it has actually regrown or been restored successfully. Sediment is a key component that may have been overlooked and is a potentially limiting factor for eelgrass restoration efforts to move forward, which is a key goal of the Long Island Sound Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan. To develop a new restoration management framework, this project will map sediment sulfide and iron gradients in relic eelgrass beds in the Niantic River Estuary, and correlate sulfide concentrations to other sediment variables to establish easy-to-measure proxies for sulfide for use in evaluation of potential eelgrass restoration. The project will then conduct experiments to test the effect of adding iron-oxide pellets, a cost-effective tool, to sediments on porewater sulfide and solid phase iron-sulfide mineral content. This method of iron amendments could potentially be easily integrated into existing restoration techniques."

Appendix #4

Land Utilization of Dredged Materials

A Subaqueous Soil Interpretation

April 2018

United State Department of Agriculture

Natural Resources Conservation Service

 

Introduction
Sulfidization, or the accumulation of sulfides, is an important soil-forming process in estuarine and marine soils (Fanning and Fanning, 1989).  In these settings, sulfate, the second most common anion in seawater, is reduced to sulfide through the metabolism of sulfate-reducing bacteria in the subsurface anaerobic soil (Jorgensen, 1977; Day et al., 1989).

Sulfide is most often trapped in the sediment by binding with metal ions, such as iron (Fe) (Jorgensen, 1977).  The sulfide content of soils is important when considering marine construction, dredging, and beach and dune nourishment projects.  If sulfide-bearing subaqueous soils are dredged and placed in a subaerial environment, sulfides will oxidize, creating sulfuric acid, drastically lowering soil pH (to a pH of less than 4), and resulting in acid sulfate soils (Fanning and Fanning, 1989).

Acid sulfate soils may persist for a number or years and are uninhabitable to plants and animals.