Texas Statewide Seagrass Monitoring Program

A Seagrass Monitoring Program for Texas Coastal Waters

Multi-scale Integration of Landscape Features with Plant and Water Quality Indicators

This website details an implementation program for monitoring Texas seagrasses following protocols that evaluate seagrass condition based on landscape-scale dynamics, including a hierarchical strategy for seagrass monitoring in order to establish the quantitative relationships between physical and biotic parameters that ultimately control seagrass condition, distribution, and persistence.

"Ecological Resilience Indicators for Five Northern Gulf of Mexico Ecosystems" report now available
Tier-2 seagrass monitoring in summer 2014 in the Upper Laguna Madre. Created by Jace Tunnell for CBBEP.

Sampling takes place at 679 permanent stations in Aransas and Redfish Bays, Corpus Christi Bay, and Upper and Lower Laguna Madre. High-resolution maps are available from our monitoring efforts for 2011 onward. In addition to annual Tier-2 monitoring, we have been working with The Nature Conservancy to incorporate seagrasses into their statewide Blue Carbon InVEST GIS model.

turtle grass with Mermaid's wine cup
Turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) among Mermaid's wine cup (Acetabularia crenulata), and the drift macroalga Digenia (background) in the Lower Laguna Madre, Texas (1.2 m depth)
aerial view of a seagrass bed
An aerial view of a seagrass bed containing a mixed assemblage of shoal grass (Halodule wrightii), manatee grass (Syringodium filiforme), and turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) in East Flats, Texas
Upper Laguna Madre distribution of seagrass beds
The Upper Laguna Madre showing the distribution of seagrass beds in relation to the ICWW, looking south toward Bird Island (Padre Island can be seen on the left)
pinfish above turtle grass
A pinfish (Lagodon rhomboides) above a turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) bed in the Lower Laguna Madre, Texas

This project is conducted by scientists and graduate students at The University of Texas Marine Science Institute (data collection and synthesis) and The University of Texas at Austin Center for Water and the Environment (Dr. Tim Whiteaker, data management) under the direction of Dr. Ken Dunton. Starting in summer 2013, all field work and data collection is being overseen by Sara Wilson. All data are collected, processed and synthesized with funding provided by several sponsors (listed below).

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Kenneth H. Dunton (ken.dunton@utexas.edu)
Marine Science Institute
The University of Texas at Austin
750 Channel View Drive
Port Aransas, TX 78373

Voice: (361) 749-6744
FAX: (361) 749-6777
www.utmsi.utexas.edu/staff/dunton

Monitoring Plan

  • Tier 1: A remote sensing component (typically at 1:24,000 resolution) for status and trends mapping that is regularly updated at about five-year intervals.
  • Tier 2: A regional rapid assessment program using fixed stations sampled annually from a shallow-draft vessel; high resolution photoimagery analysis for deep edge delineation.
  • Tier 3: An integrated landscape approach that includes permanent stations and transects that are aligned with high resolution photoimagery to examine the presumptive factors associated with changes in seagrass maximum depth limits and patchiness.

Sponsors

Funding for this research has been generously provided by: