seagrass lagoon nursery @ semakau 1

seagrass lagoon nursery @ semakau 1 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

The seagrass lagoon at Semakau is a very important place for young marine organisms to take shelter from predators. The young include both shrimp and fish fry. The dense seagrass lagoons make it difficult for larger fish to find the smaller fish or shrimp fry and this allows for more fry to reach adulthood and pro-create the next generation. Seagrass lagoons therefore play an important part in ensuring our fish stocks are managed well. Without seagrass lagoons, our fish stocks will be greatly reduced.

A well managed seagrass lagoon is a crucial asset to ensuring that our local waters are good breeding grounds for young fish and shrimp.

See http://research.myfwc.com/features/view_article.asp?id=20720 on the importance of seagrass lagoons.

The clip shows very young shrimp. The bodies are translucent and each was only about 1cm in length. The seagrass seen in the clip is Enhalus acoroides or Tape seagrass as it is commonly called. (see http://mangrove.nus.edu.sg/pub/seashore/text/108.htm) .
More links :
http://www.wildsingapore.com/chekjawa/text/g106.htm - on Tape Seagrass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulau_Semakau - on Pulau Semakau.
On Seagrass Watch :
http://www.seagrasswatch.org/Info_centre/education/Seagrass_Educators_Handbook.pdf
http://www.seagrasswatch.org/home.html