Grant: Engage Grants Program

The interface between urban development and wild habitats is often a challenging management issue. And, while not realized by many tourists, beaches represent one of these habitats: they offer recreational space for vacationers, and are an important ecological habitat for many marine and coastal species. When marine ""plants"" (seaweeds and seagrasses) are washed ashore onto beaches (tidal wrack) they provide habitat and food for intertidal invertebrates with effects that cascade across the coastal food web, including the addition of nutrients for beach plants. However, when tidal wrack accumulates at high levels or becomes stranded on a beach with most material rotting (and stinking) and no longer providing local benefits, the wrack essentially becomes a nuisance to the preservation of beaches as ecological habitats and as recreational space. To avoid rotting piles of wrack, managers often mechanically groom beaches and remove the wrack as waste. In some cases, a small percentage of waste material is relocated to agricultural fields to be used as a soil additive and growth stimulant; albeit generally without adequate testing of effectiveness. Rather than losing bioactive properties to waste, it seems a potential exists to reclaim the putative bioactive properties of tidal inputs through the preparation of a cold-pressed extract solution (similar to a compost tea) made available to home gardeners. Our research will test the hypothesis that a seaweed and seagrass liquid extract works as a plant growth biostimulant by experimentally testing its affect on three types of plants: a common horticultural plant, a model plant commonly used in greenhouse experiments, and a native beach plant that is reported to use tidal inputs to supplement growth in the wild. If benefits are observed, these results will be useful for further explorations into the development of a value-added product from tidal wrack, and the preservation of the urban beach experience.