Anthropogenic Affects on Seagrass Bed Biomass Surrounding the Philippine Archipelago

Seagrass beds are ecologically important habitat that act as nursery grounds for fish and invertebrates as well as provide ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, sediment retention, and preservation of biodiversity. Numerous coastal communities rely on seagrass beds for their fisheries. Unfortunately many of these communities may be altering the abundance of the beds and the biodiversity within them by polluting and overfishing. Our studies cover the assessment of the seagrass beds of the surrounding islands in the Philippines.  Thus far, we have assessed how these beds are up taking nitrogen runoff from the surrounding lands by carrying out isotope analysis, we analyzed the abundance by collecting biomass samples, and determined the level of biodiversity through seagrass, fish, and invertebrate identification within the beds. Biomass calculations are a crucial part of our study as it is an indicator of seagrass abundance. My part in this project will be to calculate a quantitative predictor of seagrass biomass based on measurements taken in the field.