Eelgrass, a species of seagrass named for its long slippery texture, is one of nature’s superheroes. It offers shade and camouflage for young fish, helps anchor shorelines, and provides food and habitat for many marine species.

A University of Washington study adds one more superpower to the list of eelgrass abilities: warding off the toxin-producing algae that regularly close beaches to shellfish harvests. Researchers found evidence that there are significantly fewer of the single-celled algae that produce harmful toxins in an area more than 45 feet, or 15 meters, around an eelgrass bed.

“We’re not in the laboratory. The effect we’re seeing is happening in nature, and it’s an effect that’s really widespread within this group of harmful algae. What we see is this halo of reduced abundance around the eelgrass beds,” said Emily Jacobs-Palmer, a research scientist at the UW. She is the lead author of the study published this spring in the open-access journal PeerJ.

The researchers analyzed the eDNA results to find trends among 13 major groups of organisms. They discovered that dinoflagellates, a broad class of single-celled organism, were scarcer in and around the eelgrass beds than in surrounding waters with bare seabed.

“We were asking how the biological community changes inside eelgrass beds, and this result was so strong that it jumped out at us, even though we weren’t looking for it specifically,” said senior author Ryan Kelly, a UW associate professor of marine and environmental affairs.

The above excerpts are from the article written by UW News Hannah Hickey. Read the full article here.