Southeast/Gulf/Caribbean Region

Florida Sea Grant
Sea Grant Boat Wake Research to Help Maintain Critical Oyster Reefs

• Large populations along Florida's coast have created conflicts between human uses of the waterways and natural resources such as oysters.


• Sea Grant identified the impact of boat wakes on intertidal oyster reefs and will provide coastal managers with data on which science-based management decisions may be based.


• Resource managers will be able to develop "best management practices" for recreational boaters in areas where oyster reefs are declining.


• The single-pass boat wake methodology will also be used as part of a program through the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy in Bluffton, South Carolina to help them minimize boat wake damage in an area where new marina construction will soon be underway.

Georgia Sea Grant
Sea Grant Partners to Enhance Profitability of Shrimp Industry

• University of Georgia Marine Extension Service (MAREX) is cooperating with Texas A&M Sea Grant (A&M), Wild American Shrimp Incorporated, and several Sea Grant programs through Intensive Technical Assistance to improve the profitability of regional shrimp boat owners and operators by exploiting shrimp quality improvements in upscale niche markets and through technical enhancements that improve fuel efficiency.


• MAREX is helping Georgia fishermen who wish to remain in the shrimp industry to adapt marketing and processing strategies that will allow them to better compete with imported, farm-raised shrimp.

Louisiana Sea Grant
Sea Grant Develops Fundamental Knowledge of a High-Value Fishery

• Sea Grant researchers have completed a six-year study on the fisheries habitat of juvenile red snapper in the northern Gulf of Mexico.


• This is the definitive work on the critical juvenile habitat for this species, and is expected to provide a framework for regulation of shrimp trawling on hard bottoms in this region, as per Magnuson Act requirements.

Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant
Sea Grant Helps Develop Anticancer Drug from Sponges

• As a result of Sea Grant funding, a chemical known as puupehenone, originally isolated from Hawaiian sponges, is undergoing a series of chemical modifications.


• Puupehenone has been found to have remarkable anticancer and antitubercular activities due to its high biological activity.


• This research will allow scientists to chemically construct molecules that are active against tuberculosis and do not exhibit any significant toxicity.

Puerto Rico Sea Grant
Sea Grant Launches Virtual Log to Track BLOOM 2008 Expedition in Patagonia

• University of Puerto Rico Sea Grant published a virtual travel log to document the work of eight marine biologists involved in the BLOOM 2008 Expedition aboard the Bio Hespérides ship.


• The goal of the fifteen-day investigation was to document and better understand the optical properties of phytoplankton communities and determine their hydrographic characteristics in order to classify harmful algal blooms (HABs) along the continental shelf of Argentina.


• A Sea Grant-funded marine biologist sent daily log entries, maps, graphs, satellite images and photos that documented the travels and work of the scientists to Puerto Rico Sea Grant, which published this information on the web.


• Sea Grant announced the virtual log in advance to 800 Island teachers and the general public and invited the public, teachers and students to travel along with the scientists and learn about life aboard an oceanography research ship and the scientific concepts and technologies.

South Carolina Sea Grant
Coastal/Inland Flood Observation and Warning (CI-FLOW) System Improves Flood Detection and Warning Capabilities

• Riverine and coastal flooding associated with hurricanes, tropical storms, and other forces of nature, cause significant loss of property and economic hardship each year.


• To help communities in South Carolina, North Carolina and beyond, the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium and its partners, the National Sea Grant Office, North Carolina Sea Grant, and the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), are leading a regional project, CI-FLOW (Coastal/Inland Flood Observation and Warning), to pilot a new flood detection and monitoring system.


• Test results are being used in conjunction with National Weather Service flood tools to improve flash flood detection and warning capabilities.


• CI-FLOW is also being integrated by N.C. State University researchers into a hurricane storm surge model to provide more accurate inputs from riverine flooding, and as well as being transferred to Sea Grant programs in the Gulf of Mexico for flood applications there.


• During the reporting period, funding was made available for a CIFLOW Sea Grant Extension agent position, which will be located at NSSL. Data collection has made great strides, as well as the modeling effort on the Neuse and Tar River basins.

Texas Sea Grant
Texas Sea Grant Promotes Engineering Approaches for Design of Marsh Restoration and Development Projects

• A number of marsh restoration projects have been undertaken as Galveston Bay, which, like many other estuarine environments, has lost significant amounts of salt marsh. An important feature of these restoration projects is a geo-textile ("geo-tube") breakwater to shelter the marsh from wave action.


• Sea Grant researchers have determined that the principal cause of marsh loss is insufficient sediment supply; wave action is a secondary cause of erosion.


• The researchers have developed a marsh restoration design that features a submerged sacrificial berm that provides protection from wave action and a sediment source for the marsh.


• The results from this study have begun to change the approach of marsh restoration projects in Galveston Bay. Attendees at the 2007 State of the Bay Symposium, sponsored by the Galveston Bay Estuary Program, where the study's preliminary results were first revealed, were favorably impressed and interested in developing demonstration projects.


• The value of the ecosystem services provided by salt marshes (including their role in supporting commercial fisheries) has been estimated to be $5000 per acre per year. Therefore, even relatively modest improvements in current practice will translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits annually.