Category: Uncategorized

Today we mourn the passing of one of our own in the seagrass community, Evamaria Koch. Below is a letter from WSA President, Giuseppe Di Carlo.

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19 March 2014

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am writing to some share some terrible news. On Thursday evening (March 13, 2014) our dear friend Evamaria Koch passed away.

Eva bravely fought lung cancer for a year, then most recently, the cancer spread further until nothing more could be done.

I cannot tell you the sadness I felt when I heard this news, which landed completely unexpected, as Eva chose not to share news about her health with colleagues. Most of you know how much I cared for Evamaria. She was a close friend and a mentor for me. I remember when I was still a PhD student, how much she supported me from afar, and she and I coauthored my first peer‐review publication. In 2005, Eva convinced me to move to the US to take a position at UMCES on the eastern shore of Maryland. That choice shaped much of my career from there onwards. When I arrived in the US, Evamaria was the only person I knew, and she was for a while, my family. I will never forget spending time with both Eva and her daughter Olga. Evamaria and I shared many great moments, sampling seagrasses in the Chesapeake Bay, traveling to conferences and spending time discussing research ideas at all hours of the day. I even remember celebrating Italy’s World Cup win in 2006 with Eva and Olga, together with Tim Carruthers and many other friends at UMCES. I am sure that you all have similar memories.

Aside from my personal considerations, Evamaria was an internationally respected scientist. She had a PhD in Marine Sciences from the University of South Florida and she held the position of Assistant Professor at Horn Point Laboratory – UMCES since 1995 and she then became Associate professor in 2001. Eva published more than 50 papers, of which two in the journal Science, on seagrasses with a specific focus on coastal protection, hydrodynamics and seagrass‐sediment interactions.

Eva’s favourite quote was “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” by Albert Einstein. This demonstrates her passion for science and specifically for seagrasses. Eva enjoyed tremendously spending time fleshing out new ideas and projects, SCUBA diving on seagrass beds and setting up experiments. I remember the many fun days spent on a boat in the Chesapeake Bay just like I will never forget how she proved me wrong on a number of theories about the effects of temperature and sediments on seagrasses.

Eva mentored a large number of students, masters and PhDs, and always dedicated herself to teaching both in the USA, Zanzibar and Brazil. Eva was a supporter of global science initiatives, believing in the need to establish collaboration across countries and continents. For this reason she supervised students oversees, and in 2006 she co‐organised the 7th International Seagrass Biology Workshop. In addition, Eva was one of the pioneers of global seagrass monitoring networks, working with Fred Short, Rob Coles and Miguel Fortes in establishing and running SeagrassNet, a project she strongly believed in.

As for the WSA, Evamaria participated actively in the governance of WSA, being a founding member of the Association and a Steering Committee member since 2002. She always attended meetings and contributed to building the Association to what it is today. We are proud to have had the pleasure to cross paths with such a talented and dedicated person.

I will always remember Eva and I will continue to dedicate to her my passion and knowledge of seagrasses. I hope you will join me in taking a moment for Eva, in memory of all the good moments we lived with her and to reflect on what are the things in life that count the most.

For those who knew Eva and would like to share their stories and memories, WSA would be happy to collect these to share with Eva’s family and particularly for her daughter, whom we are sure will eventually want to hear what a great scientist her mother was. For those who would like to make a donation in Eva’s name, her family has selected the World Seagrass Association to collect these donations. The WSA will establish the “Evamaria Koch student travel fund” in memory of Evamaria. This award will assist students to attend future ISBWs.

The thoughts and condolences of the WSA go to Eva’s family and most especially to Olga, Eva’s daughter.

I wish you all the best,

Dr. Giuseppe Di Carlo

President

World Seagrass Association Inc.

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The WSA website and blog were hacked in mid-January and although no data was lost nor was there any confidential information at risk it caused a bit of a mess. The blog has been reinstated and the main site has been rebuilt from scratch.

— Ainsley

By Brigit van Tussenbroek

Small invertebrates play a central role in seagrass communities as controllers of epiphyton and conduits for energy transfer from primary producers to higher trophic levels. Van Tussenbroek and collaborators at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, highlight a new interaction between meso-grazers and seagrasses by describing the foraging of invertebrates on the pollen/mucilage masses of the seagrass Thalassia testudinum during the night.

The fauna visiting the flowers was highly diverse 252 specimens belonging to 37 families and 57 species of crustaceans (Classes Maxillopoda, Ostracoda and Malacostraca) were found on 76 flowers, and 15 species were new records for the region. Annelids (mainly polychaetes) were less abundant (60 specimens) and diversified (13 species) and they exhibited no obvious differences in their visits to flowers with or without pollen. Negative consequences for reproductive success of the seagrass of the consumption of pollen by the invertebrates were most likely insignificant, because the quantities of removed pollen were very small. However, these invertebrates may serve as pollinators of T. testudinum, which if confirmed, makes this observation the first record of animal-pollination in the marine environment.

Check out the YouTube video

Find the paper in MEPS

Dear WSA members,

The period for nomination for the next WSA Executive was extended, and closed on the 5 December, 2012.

The positions of Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary are uncontested with single nominees for each position. The nominations received are as follows:

Vice-President: Richard Unsworth
Nominator: Len McKenzie
Seconder: Giuseppe Di Carlo

Treasurer: Jessie Jarvis
Nominator: Giuseppe Di Carlo
Seconder: Len McKenzie

Secretary: Len McKenzie
Nominator: Rob Coles
Seconder: Rudi Yoshida

There are two nominees for President so this position will be decided by a vote:

Nomination 1

Giuseppe Di Carlo
Nominator: Len McKenzie
Seconder: Richard Unsworth

Nomination 2

Mike van Keulen
Nominator: Anitra Thorhaug
Seconder: Evamaria Koch

Voting is now open but will close on the 19 December, 2012 — so please do not delay in submitting your ballot. Please note that only current financial members of the WSA are allowed to participate in this vote. Members have been emailed directly with instructions on how to cast their ballot, if you have not received instructions about voting please contact the WSA Secretary ASAP < wsa.secretary@gmail.com >.

Dear Members

We would like to invite all members of the World Seagrass Association to submit articles for a WSA special issue of the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin titled “Seagrass meadows in a globally changing environment”.

A description of the special issue and its proposed content is listed below.

The special issue will be edited by myself, Rob Coles and Mike van Keulen. All submissions would need to be completed by the end of February, and we encourage potential authors to submit proposed titles (with a brief summary) to us asap.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,
Richard Unsworth
Vice-President, WSA Inc.


Marine Pollution Bulletin Special Issue
Seagrass meadows in a globally changing environment
Proposed Editors: Richard Unsworth, Rob Coles, Mike Van Keulen
Overview
Seagrass meadows are valuable ecosystem service providers that may have a greater resilience to future environmental change than many marine habitats. Unfortunately these habitats of high functional importance are now being lost globally at an unprecedented rate, with water quality and other localised stressors putting their future viability in doubt. It is therefore critical that we learn more about the interactions between seagrass meadows and future environmental change in the anthropocene. This needs to be with particular reference to the consequences of poor water quality on ecosystem resilience and the effects of change on trophic interactions within the food web. Understanding and predicting the response of seagrass meadows to future environmental change requires an understanding of the natural long-term drivers of change and how these are currently influenced by anthropogenic stress. Conservation management of coastal and marine ecosystems now and in the future requires increased knowledge of how seagrass meadows respond to environmental change, and how they can be managed to be resilient to these changes. The proposed special issue aims to further enhance this knowledge by bringing together global expertise across this field and will solicit primary research and review articles. The proposed special issue would be in collaboration with the World Seagrass Association and would cover the following areas:

• Understanding seagrass ecosystem resilience and adaptations in a globally changing environment
• The impact of future climate on trophic interactions and habitat value within the seagrass food web
• Quantifying and modelling the carbon sequestration capacity of seagrass meadows
• Climate and ocean acidifications interactions with water quality and its impact on seagrass
• Drivers of change within seagrass landscapes, and approaches to quantifying and modelling those drivers
• Understanding risk in the management of seagrass meadows
• Socio-economic consequences of environmental change to seagrass
• Indigenous communities and seagrass conservation

Proposed timetable:
Invitation to submit articles: September 2012
Article submission deadline: February 2013
Reviews complete: July 2013
Estimated special issue publication Sept 2013

Website for ISBW10 is up! click here

This year’s theme for International Day for Biodiversity is Marine Biodiversity. The WSA blog will be featuring a series of articles on seagrass this month so watch this space!

Visit the Convention on Biological Diversity page here.