| | Accession Number | 5003443 |
| | Title | SAV restoration and ecosystem research |
| | Project Description | The Chesapeake Bay is the nations largest estuary and one of the most productive in the world. |
| | The Bay contains over 295 species of finfish and 45 species of shellfish, which results in the third |
| | largest fishery catch in the US, trailing only catches recorded in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. |
| | The Bay serves as the spawning ground for 70 to 90 percent of the striped bass in the Atlantic |
| | ocean and provides recreational fishing to one million people, at an estimated economic value of |
| | $1 billion per year. Unfortunately, the commercial, economic and recreational value of the Bay has |
| | been threatened by over harvesting of living resources, loss of habitat, and degradation of water |
| | quality. The Chesapeake Bay Program, a multi-agency restoration effort, was begun in 1983 to |
| | restore and manage this natural resource. Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) is a keystone |
| | element of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. SAV provides shelter for at least some life stages of |
| | nearly all the aquatic species in the Bay and is required habitat for many species. Vegetation |
| | functions to improve water quality by providing sites for settling of suspended solids. SAV species |
| | provide food for diving ducks. Beds of SAV were lost from the Chesapeake Bay as development |
| | increased and discharges of nutrients and suspended solids reduced light transmittance. Large |
| | efforts in many quarters, by conservation groups and state and federal agencies, are currently |
| | underway in attempts to restore SAV populations throughout the Bay. There is a need to better |
| | understand the environmental conditions that constrain and enhance SAV establishment and |
| | growth and to better understand linkages between SAV and other living resources within |
| | Chesapeake Bay. The current effort is aimed at providing relevant information on SAV ecosystems |
| | in several areas: 1) understand the links between SAV beds and their environmental requirement |
| | and 2) refine our understanding of the linkages between SAV and other living resources within the |
| | Bay. |
| | Keywords | ecosystem, estuary, food web, linkages, restoration, sav, sediments, techniques, water quality, |
| | Principal | Janet R Keough, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: janet_keough@usgs.gov; Peter |
| | Investigators | Bergstrom, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Chesapeake Bay Field Office: |
| | peter-bergstrom@mail.fws.gov; Michael Haramis, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: |
| | michael_haramis@usgs.gov; Matthew Perry, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: |
| | matthew_perry@usgs.gov; |
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