By Asilah AwangTwenty seventeen was the year when I fell in love. Yes, you read that right. I fell in love. I was in my fieldwork attire with heavy sediment traps around my arms and my feet buried under soft mud as I first walked into an intertidal seagrass meadow. Despite the struggle to move, I found myself enchanted by the beauty of the meadow as the early morning light illuminated them. It was that magical moment when I realized that I had fallen in love with seagrass. I know, I know, you must be thinking, "It's just a muddy field. What is so beautiful about that?" Well let me tell you, it was not just the seagrass, but it is the life on the meadow, as well. A seagrass meadow is a home, playground, and feeding ground to many aquatic organisms. As an ecosystem engineer, seagrass can turn an unlivable barren bed into a prosperous habitat. On the meadow, I saw carpet anemones, crabs, clams, and juvenile fishes. The interaction between these organisms with seagrass and how they complement each other, that itself is beautiful beyond words. Middle Bank Seagrass – that was the name of the meadow. Probably named by the locals due to its location in the middle of Penang Straits. This 136ha underwater garden was mostly hidden in plain sight. It will only surface and reveal itself during the lowest tide of the month, giving the opportunity of a 2-3 hours window for the curious mind to explore. To access it you will need to take a boat ride from Batu Uban Jetty. And here are some tips for you: There is a huge sandbank on the northern side of the meadow. Do disembark at the sandbank, especially if this is your first time going to a seagrass meadow. The seabed of the Middle Bank Seagrass gets muddier towards the south. Unless you are a mudskipper, or you don't mind walking in mud that buries almost half of your body, then it is best if you start from the north and spend more time exploring the meadow than mastering your 'mudskipping' technique. Believe me, laughing at each other trying to move in the mud was fun... but only for a while. When your energy battery gets depleted, you will be questioning why you chose to do THIS to yourself. Okay... now back to the seagrass... The Middle Bank Seagrass was sparse but the species were well mixed. There were three different seagrass species: Enhalus acoroides, Thalassia hemprichii, and Halophila ovalis. E. acoroides, the largest of them all, was the most common species found on the meadow and it was quite well dispersed. I noticed the seagrass was denser at the eastern side of the meadow (further from the land) than the west, where the seabed was firmer. Species like T. hemprichii was found more abundant closer to the sandbank, too. One of the factors of seagrass composition and abundance is the sediment type. Some seagrass species may prefer coarser sediment, like T. hemprichii because the seeds are sensitive to burial and high sedimentation. Some may thrive in the softer seabed, while others may have a bigger threshold and can live in both coarse and soft sediment. Although this is not part of my research, don't you think it would be interesting to know how the sediment types influence the Middle Bank Seagrass composition? (Hmmm... future studies, maybe?) For my research, I was interested to know how seagrass affects sedimentation. I used sediment traps to collect the sediment. They were big and really heavy, about 10kg per set of traps. I have to say it was such a workout, especially carrying them in the mud! I am no Wonder Woman, so of course, I had a strong muscular man helping me with the traps, in case you're wondering *wink wink* Check out this page to learn more about my project. The Future of the Middle Bank SeagrassJust like many other seagrass meadows in the world, the Middle Bank seagrass is threatened by human activities. In many cases, seagrass meadows have been lost because of coastal development projects. They are usually the target for reclamation as the bed sediment in seagrass meadow is more stable. By the end of my project in 2020, there was an ongoing reclamation project at Seri Tanjung Pinang (northeast coast of Penang Island), and we are expecting more of these types of projects to come in the near future as part of the Penang Transport Master Plan. The lack of baseline data will make it hard to measure the impact magnitude of these projects on the seagrass meadow.
As of now, the conservation of seagrass meadow in Malaysia is still incidental, most likely due to the lack of seagrass data to support the importance of our seagrass. My project aimed to provide this information. I hope the findings will contribute to improving our seagrass protection policy. Till then, stay tuned! Comments are closed.
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