CSCR’s study of eelgrass originated as a seaperch robotics project and has evolved along with technology since. We used early gopros, various fitness apps, and GPSs to track our locations, and with ESRI, we evolved to use ArcGIS Collector, Survey 123, and Quick Capture. We’ve learned about tunicates, wasting disease, and Seagrass Net protocols and assisted Carolina Batistas’ in her MIT Seagrant baited gopro experiment. In 2016, Levente Haber (now a graduate of UMass Amherst) presented our work in a poster session at Zosterapalooza, a professional eelgrass conference hosted by the EPA. Noah Sullivan and Clark Auger (now at Eastern Nazarene College), took on this role in 2017, followed by Ellie Arnold represented CSCR in 2018, fielding questions from professors, graduate students, and environmental regulatory professionals.
Using the data from ArcGIS Collector, Lucy Clay (now at Wake Forest) and Andrew Hoadley (now at Bowdoin) created a poster mapping the type of underwater sediment in the area, for the next Zosterapalooza, 2019. Lucy Clay and Andrew Hoadley represented CSCR at 2019 EPA Zosterapalooza Conference. After snorkeling, mapping, and measuring water turbidity in the summer of 2019, the eelgrass team presented that summer’s field findings to a 2020 (Covid year) virtual audience of local town officials, non-profit and state representatives at CSCR’s 2020 State of the Harbor conference.
Here is a younger Brendan Burke exploring solo colonizing plants: