Seagrass Q&A
By Jessie Dominick
After learning a whole lot about common seagrasses found in beautiful Florida, I decided to inform my little sister about them. She had some interesting questions along the way that offered great information for anyone who may not be a marine biologist, plant ecologist, or for anyone who is not a hard core biologist like myself:
Question 1. What seagrasses are you going to see down in Florida?
Answer: The three most well known and important seagrasses that I'm going to see are turtle seagrass, manatee seagrass, and shoal grass.
Question 2. Why are they called manatee and turtle seagrass?
Answer: They actually get those names because those are the animals that like to graze on these seagrasses. Manatee seagrass is for the famous sea cows you may see floating around the surface of the ocean, and the turtle grass is named specifically after the green turtle.
Question 3. How can you tell each of these apart? Don’t they all just look like grass?
Answer: Well yes, they are technically a grass. But they do look different from each other. Turtle seagrass looks most like common grass with its thin, long blades. Manatee grass is more rounded, just like a manatee’s whiskers! And shoal grass is almost like a mixture of the two; it’s flat like turtle seagrass, but it’s thick like manatee seagrass.
Question 4. Are these seagrasses all over the place?
Answer: No they are not. They need to be in shallow water in order to get enough sunlight for photosynthesis.
Question 5. What is photosynthesis?
Answer: Photosynthesis is to plants what eating is to us. Photosynthesis is how plants get their nutrients and grow enough to reproduce. Just like humans need to eat their veggies and drink their milk to become big and strong.
Question 6. Do these seagrasses do anything cool?
Answer: They do quite a few things that are really cool. First of all, they’re a nursery for young fish. That means that little baby fishes that aren’t big enough to defend themselves yet can live in here and be protected by the shelter of the seagrass. They are also a food source for animals, like turtles, manatees, fishes, and more! They even clear up the water, which makes it easy for people to see the fish living in the seagrass beds. And last, but not least, they can make pretty flowers!
To learn more about seagrasses and see more pictures of what these seagrasses look like, click here!
Jessica I really love the way that you laid out the information. Your sisters questions were so interesting and I am glad you took the time to answer them! The reasoning that you used to answer why the names are the way they are was very cleaver. Giving her multiple examples of what animals eat there specifically, and how you can tell the animals apart. Although her questions could have seemed hard for some people to answer, you broke them down in a very simple way, such as the green sea turtles eat the sea turtle grass. The last question where " do these seagrasses do anything cool?" is a interesting question and I really enjoyed your answer. The nursery for young fish is something i also wrote about, the way that the fish can reside there until strong and then venture out on there own if the so choose. I loved your blog post! :)
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