Investigating the vital role of tiny seagrass companions

Seagrasses are the only flowering plants to make the evolutionary transition from land to sea. They help prevent coastal erosion, sequester carbon, and provide food and shelter for many ocean species. Seagrass leaves and stems also provide a home for microbes that are essential to overall seagrass health, yet climate change threatens this mutually beneficial relationship. Barnabas Daru, assistant professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, will investigate how climate change might disrupt seagrass-microbe associations across individual, population, and community scales. Focusing on four seagrass species native to the Pacific Coast of North America, Daru will leverage herbarium specimens spanning 192 years and combine new field surveys with DNA sequencing technology to examine seagrass-microbe interactions through time and space. Together, these approaches will reveal how seagrass ecosystems are being reshaped by climate change and identify groups of microbes that are important for seagrass conservation and restoration.

Above: Seagrass (Thalassodon ciliatum) in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Image credit: Ben Jones / Ocean Image Bank