San Juan County Eelgrass mapping & Conservation

Led by Tina Whitman, Friends of the San Juans.
Collaborators include the Washington Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, and University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs 

Declines in native eelgrass (Zostera marina) beds in San Juan County is a big conservation concern. This species provides numerous ecosystem services including habitat, biodiversity, better water quality, and coastal protection. Monitoring in this area is limited as is our understanding of factors that might be causing declines. With warming temperatures, exacerbation of eelgrass wasting disease is thought to be one of the potential contributing factors. 

This project will survey eelgrass meadows to expand upon existing knowledge of their distribution and to sample for disease from a subset of sites in hopes to identify eelgrass conservation priorities and to determine if disease is an indicator for climate resiliency.