Skimmer Says... Submerged Aquatic Vegetation

Did you know that Delaware has submerged aquatic vegetation? Join us this month as we talk with Kayla Clauson from the Delaware DNREC Division of Watershed Stewardship about the Delaware Statewide Submerged Aquatic Vegetation workgroup. For more information visit their website at delawaresav.org or find them on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. 

To contact the education team about an education program or volunteer event, email us at dnerrprograms@delaware.gov. 

You can follow us on Facebook at @DNERR or Instagram at @delawarenerr.

Transcript

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Welcome to Skimmer Says, an estuarine podcast hosted by the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve. I'm your host, Laurel. Today I have Alissa with us, and we have a guest cohost from the Division of Watershed Stewardship in DNREC, Kayla. Hi. Yes, I'm in watershed stewardship and I manage the SAV program. The SAV program. What is SAV? Well, SAV is an all inclusive term. I like to say it stands for submerged aquatic vegetation. And that basically covers all rooted flowering angiosperms that you would find underwater. Okay. We have that here? We do. Yes. I like to say SAV more than other common names that it could be reference to, like bay grasses or seagrasses, which is, pretty common to hear them be referenced. I think those are a little bit more limiting from where you would find them, like sea grasses. You're thinking just the sea or the ocean. In Delaware, we don't have a lot of those. We do have a lot of other submerged aquatic vegetation. So that's saying it that way, really covers from freshwater streams, rivers all the way to the sea grasses and stuff in the ocean. Does that include, like, ponds and things too? Are those separate? Yep. Think any aquatic flowering plant found completely submerged. Lakes, streams, ponds, tax ditches. Anything. Cool. Would be included in that term. So we have a lot of fun, Alissa and I, as we've been preparing for you to be here, because we've been looking into it because I don't think a lot about SAV, which is why you're here, to tell us about it. Sure. But Alissa's been doing a little bit of research, and she's got a game time for you. Okay. So, Alyssa, take it over. All right. So you’ve seen the list of the SAVs that we have. I'm going to pick one, and then we can have you guess which SAV I that I am. Okay. So let's let's go with this one. Okay. All right. So so I'll start. I have grass like leaves. Okay. I have alternate leaf arrangements. Okay. I'm found in freshwater. And then I produce yellow flowers. Okay. This one. I like scientific names. This is Heteranthera dubia. It is. Common names for this in this region are called either mud leaf grass plantain, which is a mouthful, or water star grass. Yep. On here as water star grass. Another one. That was kind of fun. I don't know what they are. All right, so this is an invasive species. Okay. This is a highly separated leaves and whorls of 3 to 5. It's found in freshwater, and it's an invasive species. That would be hydrilla. It is. Yes. You want to tell us a little bit about hydrilla? There's a native species that often gets misidentified because it resembles hydrilla really closely. And one of the biggest things about hydrilla that really sets it apart from our native species, which are, homogeneous Elodia are its highly serrated leaves, almost like a serrated steak knife. It has these little kind of ridges along its leaves that really set it apart from native species, but it can form really dense beds. And, it is really good at being an invasive species. Because its main way of reproduction is fragmentation. So about going through it and just ripping apart, it can just float downstream and just make a whole new start. Somewhere new. Start somewhere new. Fresh start. That's that's cool. Yeah. All right. One more, one more. All right then we're not looking at the back sheet to know. Well it's printed on both sides. Yeah. So I don't know what's coming my way. All right. So this one is found in freshwater. It has narrow leaves in alternate arrangements. And then it has delicate branching stems. Okay. It could be one of three species. I'm thinking if the delicate. The word delicate again, it could either be, I’d either say Sago Pondweed or Horned Pondweed. Which, neither of which are actual pondweeds. But, is there any seed mentioned, of the shape? Because that would really help. It does, that kind of gives it away. So I'm assuming the horned pondweed. Yeah. It is horned pondweed. The seeds are really distinct on these. Yeah. They're cool. Cool. Great job. Three for three. So we do have a pro expert here. Oh, I’d say so. Okay. I like that title. A pro expert. Double double. Double double good. Double good. So you said submerged aquatic vegetation is really vegetation found in the water. Submerge completely. Completely. Is there anything else that distinguishes it separately from being seaweed? Yeah. Because both live underwater, in the same habitat. There's a lot of misconception that one, they're both one in the same, seaweeds are algaes, so they don't really have roots. Which is one of, like, the bigger, kind of differences. Whereas SAV is rooted, it has stems, leaves, flowers, similar to how like land plants do. So the flowers in your garden are actually more closely related to SAV than seaweed is related to SAV. Okay. And, it's to think of it on like an evolutionary time scale. Seaweed is an algae, and all land plants evolved from algae in the ocean. And then, a group of land plants actually re evolved to go back into the water. So it's really similar to how, like, marine mammals are, you know, closer closely related to land mammals than they are, like sharks, right? Yeah. Sharks are fish. Yeah. They're different animals. Yeah. They're different animals. They look they can kind of look the same and they live in the same habitat. But sharks are fish. Dolphins are mammals more closely related to land animals then. So it's kind of like a similar parallel to the algae and SAV. Just with plants. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, that's really interesting. Is there I know also kind of gave you a little bit of a game time of some of the plants that we find in Delaware, or SAV that we find in Delaware. Is there like a most common type that we see in Delaware or most common? What's the deal in Delaware? Yeah. I would say for like a type or species, I would say there's we have a lot more freshwater SAV than we do, like marine or brackish. Okay. We actually don't think we have any marine SAV, which would be like eelgrass or Zostera. We're actually, if you look at a map from at least North Carolina to Maine, it kind of just skips from Maryland, right, to Jersey. Yes. From, like the eelgrass marine SAV perspective, which is really interesting. It's, cause us to scratch our heads a lot, but we do have a lot of brackish, brackish species, which you could find in like that like, kind of mixed estuarine zone. But a lot more freshwater species, which is the case for a lot of places because there's a lot more diversity in freshwater. So we'd say we have a lot more freshwater SAV. About 20 species have been documented since I started monitoring these in like 2023. So only two years and we've discovered at least 20 different species across the whole, freshwater through brackish area. Very impressive. Yeah, the reserve system, we're one of 30. So there's a lot of reserves that do a lot of SAV work. And we I talked a little bit to Mollie when you contacted me because I was like, do we have that here? And she was kind of saying the same thing that we have a lot more of the freshwater, because they have full like monitoring programs throughout, like the Maryland reserves and stuff like that. To look at their ell grasses or they might not have eel grass. I might be making that up. But to look at their different SAV that they have there. So that's cool. I've definitely seen it in ponds and I've been out in ponds. Yeah. So why do we care? I always like to ask the people that, like, work so closely with it. Like, my thing is, like, I work a lot on our Trash Birds project with our stewardship coordinator, so, like, I know why I care about trash and birds nests. Why should we care about SAV? There could be a lot of reasons why one would care about SAV. Maybe not always like a direct care, I would say. But, for one, it is great at helping facilitate like good water quality so it can really, with its, you know, you're thinking of a plant under water and it has, you know, leaves or, you know, in various shapes and sizes and it's really great at, like, helping trap sediment. Yeah. And, so just like, get the water column to be a little bit more clear by just trapping sediment, in that it also it is rooted so it can help stabilize sediments just like how like wetland plants can on banks, to a different scale, but it can help stabilize sediments. A lot of, research has been done on like more of the marine SAV from like blue carbon. But it can also help, like sequester carbon and store it underground. So that's, you know, for like, climate change and storing carbon potential is there as well, which again, those are like a little bit more like indirect things. But one of the biggest things that I think people should care about SAV is it's potential for nursery habitat. So like if you're a fisherman or you like to go crabbing or even like hunting and waterfowl, they all rely on SAV a lot. Yeah. If you like blue crabs, that's where they like to hide when they're like, young, blast red drum. A lot of these fish when they're juveniles or, you know, babies sort of think of the nursery. Nursery for recreationally and, yeah, ecologically important species. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of hunters, like waterfowl hunters, tend to know where SAV is. Because that's where the birds like to go. Because that's where everything else is at. That makes the circle of life. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So we talked a little bit about Delaware having SAV. And so you have mentioned a couple times the SAV work group. Can you tell me a little bit about the research that's happening on SAV or the work that's happening on SAV in Delaware? Yeah. The work group for Delaware Statewide Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Workgroup for D SAV for short, is a group, of, just different partners, from nonprofits, state, federal. Universities. That come together to try to advance SAV work in Delaware historically, especially comparing it to the region in the Mid-Atlantic or even just East coast, Delaware is one of the states that hasn't had a big focus on SAV monitoring or research. So out of the result of a stakeholder meeting that Delaware Sea Grant had hosted in September 2023, there was kind of the identified need of having a, a collaboration and this work group. So, myself and Brittany Haywood from Delaware Sea Grant are the co-chairs, and we have a small steering committee with partners from the Delaware Center for Inland Bays, who does a lot of bay grass SAV work down on the Inland Bays and also the partnership for the Delaware Estuary, in the Delaware Estuary, doing some freshwater work as well. And we all are trying to just put our resources together that we have and trying to get, some monitoring done, really trying to figure out what we have and where we have it is like a starting off point. Yeah. And also trying to do seed based restoration. So we're trying to expand on the beds and the known species we already have across the state. Cool. Yeah. So is there any way I know that we have, like, a big volunteer program here at the reserve, and people are always looking for new volunteer projects. So is there any way for the public to get involved? Are you looking for volunteers? Yeah. One big thing we're actually gearing up to launch this year is our volunteer SAV monitoring program. We're calling it the SAV Seekers. Oh, that’s cute. Yeah. It's, actually modeled off the Chesapeake Bay Program's, SAV watchers, which is a very wide, multi-state, multi organization monitoring method. To help just get eyes on the water. We adapted it for Delaware specifically, because we're not looking bay wide like the Bay program is. We're looking more at, again what we have where we have it, which includes like the tax ditches, the lakes, the ponds, all of our streams trying to utilize the people who are on the water. Yeah. And all the time, anyway, just to, kind of help us figure out what we have, where we have it. So it's, a train, the trainer type program. So volunteers would be they don't need any existing knowledge. They will be trained on how to collect water quality and assess the habitat and also identify species and report that. And then we're hoping with that we can, you know, grow and expand to kind of and once we know what we have, where we have it can maybe inform more research or, you know, potential, you know, SAV growth. Literally and, you know, just like from efforts across the state. So how do people find out about those trainings? Where can they find you guys? Yeah, that's through the DSAV. So we're going to have all of the information posted on our website. We have it's Delawaresav.org. And we also have social media. We have Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. So we post, we will be posting, as opportunities arise and training events and such like that. And that's awesome. Yeah, I know a lot of our volunteers would probably be jazzed about something like that. Yeah, and it's really adapted for, if like if you have a boat, you can get on a boat if you have a kayak or a stand up paddle board or even wading. A lot of our freshwater SAV is wadable. And like, smaller, narrower, shallower bodies of water too. So there's even like the walking component of it too. So really like wherever you can get. Yeah. And report me some information. Meant for everybody. It’s meant for everyone. Yeah. Alissa, did you have questions? I was wondering if you guys have. So have you done monitoring before? Yeah. How do you guys go about it? Right now we really focus on one known donor bed of SAV. We have a really abundant population of brackish SAV called widgeon grass, or Ruppia maritima. Down in our inland bays of Little Assawoman Bay. And we have been monitoring that because it's been kind of monitored and played with a few times in the past almost ten years now. Okay. Just where like people who had time and energy and interest in it. But that is our primary seed source for our ongoing seed based restoration. So the monitoring for that up until last year has been just going out and checking the locations and just kind of noticing if it's there or not or when it looks ready to, to collect, because you really have to collect it at the peak timing of like, where the seeds are most ripe so you can get the most material. This past year, we kind of really established our baseline, and we made, a sentinel site monitoring plan for this specific species in this area, almost as like a pilot, so we can, you know, we don't have long term data sets for this. So we're trying to, we developed the pilot Sentinel site, which is we're going to go there repeatedly throughout the year to collect the same data at the same exact points. And that looks like collecting, like water quality. We're looking at the salinity, the temperature, water clarity. And then we're also looking at the, the general plants, like coverage, like the density. And what the, what the plants look like. So again, like, are the seeds present? Are the flowers present? Is it present at all this time of year, this year? So that's like a little bit more like a detailed one that we're really excited to kind of have because again, we don't we haven't had that historically. Yeah. That's very awesome. I was just thinking about it because when I did the marsh vegetation monitoring with Christina and Taylor, we had like square that we had to put over a certain area and then they would see like the density of, like how many different plants were involved. Yeah. I didn't know if there was something similar, like. Yeah, yeah, we definitely have, a quadrad involved in that, but it involves snorkeling. Yeah. That's what I was curious about. As we expand our like, sentinel or more like in depth monitoring, we would probably, you know, those typically could be done with like, scuba or underwater vegetation surveys. Basically what you do on land just under water. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. You know, as scientists we love quadrat. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. if the listeners of this podcast take away one thing about SAV in Delaware, what do you want them to know? I think I would want them to know that because I've mentioned multiple times that, you know, we don't have large data sets or, you know, long term efforts put into it, like our Mid-Atlantic neighbors, or, you know, especially being right next door to Chesapeake Bay who has decades of work being done. I, I don't want people to be discouraged by that. I often remind myself that as well, because we do have, data and resources from these other organizations, we get to start a little bit ahead, even if we're a little bit behind, because we have lessons learned in all of that from the other states and, you know, other, you know, regional partners. So I think, just because we don't think we have a lot of SAV or there haven't been a lot of efforts, you know, we're just kind of at ground zero ish and, you know, just moving forward, I think we'll end with, like, restoration. And as you know, things become more available. We can get there. We can have eel grass, you know, maybe one day in our, you know, off our coast and, you know, I think just stay optimistic and just stay interested. And, you know, the more people that are interested and that the more effort that gets put into it, I think we can really grow something really, really nicely. That's awesome. Well, we will go ahead and we will link your website and the social media pages for the SAV work group. Yeah. In the notes or the show notes. And that way people can find you if they're interested in helping out. So thank you for coming out and seeing us today. We have you for having me. I think that's all the Skimmer has to say about SAV. So until next time. Bye bye.