Monitoring Seagrass in National Parks of the Gulf Coast Network: Protocol Narrative

Meiman, Joe; Segura, Martha

The mission of the National Park Service (NPS) is to conserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources of the national park system for the enjoyment of this and future generations (NPS 1999). To uphold this goal, the NPS has implemented a science-based program to document and monitor important natural resources in over 270 parks, which are organized into 32 Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) networks. Early in program development, each I&M network and their parks worked together to identify a set of high-priority ‘Vital Signs’ that are monitored as indicators of park ecosystem health. During network vital signs selection, Gulf Islands National Seashore (GUIS) and Padre Island National Seashore (PAIS) recognized the need to monitor seagrass meadows, both to serve as indicators of ecological integrity in the park and to contribute to the region-wide seagrass monitoring efforts that began in 1999 (Dunton et al. 2011). To meet this need, the Gulf Coast Network now conducts long-term seagrass monitoring in these two coastal parks, which are located on the northern Gulf of Mexico and contain extensive seagrass meadows of up to five seagrass species. Seagrass meadows are recognized as key aquatic resources worldwide for their high productivity and ecosystem services (Hemminga and Duarte 2000). They support diverse marine lifeforms, including many commercially important fish and crustaceans; they improve water quality through transpiration of oxygen; and they help stabilize the sea floor against wave action. However, the extent and density of seagrass meadows are declining worldwide due to direct physical disturbance and indirect effects of watershed development resulting in water quality degradation (Orth et al. 2006; Waycott et al. 2009). Waycott et al. (2009) estimated that 29% of the global seagrass habitat has disappeared over the past 100 years. Recognition of these losses has led to a proliferation of seagrass monitoring efforts around the world, with some notable examples of cross-agency and cross-border cooperation (Neckles et al. 2012). Within the Gulf Coast region, effectiveness and scope can be maximized by different federal and state agencies sharing their methods and data region-wide. The Gulf Coast Network has taken this approach by patterning their methods on the Texas statewide seagrass monitoring plan (Dunton et al. 2011). Seagrass monitoring by the Gulf Coast Network occurs at 170 permanent stations in Texas, Florida and Mississippi, with each station sampled once every three years. There are 64 stations at PAIS, all located within the hypersaline Upper Laguna Madre of South Texas. At GUIS there are 106 stations: 60 are in the lagoons and sounds of west Florida and 46 are in the shallow waters of the Mississippi Sound. When sampling each station, field crews estimate percent cover and measure leaf length of each seagrass species in four 0.5 × 0.5 meter quadrats (1.6 × 1.6 feet). They also collect water quality data on-site. As data are collected and analyzed, the network generates two types of reports (Monitoring Event Reports and Change Analysis Reports) and publishes them, along with the raw data, so that they are available to park staff and the scientific community in a timely manner. These data and reports serve to meet the network’s primary and secondary seagrass monitoring objectives. The primary objective is to monitor changes in seagrass percent cover, community species composition, and leaf length. The secondary objective is to collect ancillary data (physicochemical measurements of the water column) in order to determine relationships between seagrass percent cover, species composition, and leaf length and the ancillary data. An additional programmatic objective is to participate in regional seagrass monitoring when fiscally and logistically feasible.

Monitoring Seagrass in National Parks of the Gulf Coast Network: Protocol Narrative

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