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Successful mechanical seagrass transplantation on Success Bank, Western Australia
Conference paper   Open access

Successful mechanical seagrass transplantation on Success Bank, Western Australia

E.I. Paling, M. van Keulen, C. Walker, R. Dyhrberg and J. Phillips
Biodiversity, Biotechnology & Biobusiness - 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Biotechnology (Perth, Western Australia, 23/11/1998–27/11/1998)
1998
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Abstract

The decline of seagrass meadows around population centres worldwide has caused much research to be directed into their rehabilitation, restoration and mitigation. Most transplant efforts to date have been carried out at a relatively small scale « 1 ha) using manual methods. In the northern hemisphere, the relative success of these methods for small scale projects has been largely due to the properties of the seagrass species used (primarily Zostera marina). Until recently, very little success has been achieved in Australian efforts at transplantation. This has been due to their loss or removal by hydrological forces, epiphyte growth, fungal attack and/or grazing by sea urchins. In Western Australia, of the 7,500 transplant units that have been placed within the Perth Metropolitan region, most have been lost due to water motion. It was determined therefore that to make restoration a viable option, larger transplant units were necessary (to ensure high survival rates) along with the capability to restore a sufficiently large area. The only feasible option therefore was to construct a mechanical device to extract and plant seagrass. Manual methods of transplantation have been carried out to provide data to aid in site selection for mechanical transplantation.

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