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1. Warming sea surface temperatures fuel summer epidemics of eelgrass wasting disease

   https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13902  

   Groner, ML; Eisenlord, ME; Yoshioka, RM; Fiorenza, EA; Dawkins, PD; Graham, OJ; Winningham, M; Vompe, A; Rivlin, ND; Yang, B; et al (November 2021, Marine Ecology Progress Series)

   Seawater temperatures are increasing, with many unquantified impacts on marine diseases. While prolonged temperature stress can accelerate host-pathogen interactions, the outcomes in nature are poorly quantified. We monitored eelgrass wasting disease (EWD) from 2013-2017 and correlated mid-summer prevalence of EWD with remotely sensed seawater temperature metrics before, during, and after the 2015-2016 marine heatwave in the northeast Pacific, the longest marine heatwave in recent history. Eelgrass shoot density declined by 60% between 2013 and 2015 and did not recover. EWD prevalence ranged from 5-70% in 2013 and increased to 60-90% by 2017. EWD severity approximately doubled each year between 2015 and 2017. EWD prevalence was positively correlated with warmer temperature for the month prior to sampling while EWD severity was negatively correlated with warming prior to sampling. This complex result may be mediated by leaf growth; bigger leaves may be more likely to be diseased, but may also grow faster than lesions, resulting in lower severity. Regional stressors leading to population declines prior to or early in the heatwave may have exacerbated the effects of warming on eelgrass disease susceptibility and reduced the resilience of this critical species. 

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2. Ocean current patterns drive the worldwide colonization of eelgrass (Zostera marina)

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01464-3  

   Yu, Lei; Khachaturyan, Marina; Matschiner, Michael; Healey, Adam; Bauer, Diane; Cameron, Brenda; Cusson, Mathieu; Emmett Duffy, J.; Joel Fodrie, F.; Gill, Diana; et al (August 2023, Nature Plants)

   Abstract Currents are unique drivers of oceanic phylogeography and thus determine the distribution of marine coastal species, along with past glaciations and sea-level changes. Here we reconstruct the worldwide colonization history of eelgrass (Zostera marinaL.), the most widely distributed marine flowering plant or seagrass from its origin in the Northwest Pacific, based on nuclear and chloroplast genomes. We identified two divergent Pacific clades with evidence for admixture along the East Pacific coast. Two west-to-east (trans-Pacific) colonization events support the key role of the North Pacific Current. Time-calibrated nuclear and chloroplast phylogenies yielded concordant estimates of the arrival ofZ. marinain the Atlantic through the Canadian Arctic, suggesting that eelgrass-based ecosystems, hotspots of biodiversity and carbon sequestration, have only been present there for ~243 ky (thousand years). Mediterranean populations were founded ~44 kya, while extant distributions along western and eastern Atlantic shores were founded at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (~19 kya), with at least one major refuge being the North Carolina region. The recent colonization and five- to sevenfold lower genomic diversity of the Atlantic compared to the Pacific populations raises concern and opportunity about how Atlantic eelgrass might respond to rapidly warming coastal oceans. 

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3. EeLISA: Combating GlobalWarming Through the Rapid Analysis of Eelgrass Wasting Disease

   Rappazzo, B. H. (January 2021, Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence)

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4. Experimental impacts of climate warming and ocean carbonation on eelgrass Zostera marina

   https://doi.org/10.3354/meps12051  

   Zimmerman, RC; Hill, VJ; Jinuntuya, M; Celebi, B; Ruble, D; Smith, M; Cedeno, T; Swingle, WM (February 2017, Marine Ecology Progress Series)
5. Plasticity and Adaptation of Northern California Eelgrass in Response to Sediment Conditions

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-025-01549-6  

   Zabinski, Karolina_L; Murphy, Claire_E; DuBois, Katherine; Stachowicz, John_J (May 2025, Estuaries and Coasts)

   Abstract Considerable research describes the interactions between seagrasses and their sedimentary environment, but there is little information on how populations differ in their innate versus plastic responses to these differences. Here, we test whether sediment contributes to eelgrass population differentiation and the nature of plastic responses to different sediment environments. We do this via a 15-week, fully crossed common garden experiment with two populations and their native sediment types. Plants from the warmer-temperature, clay-dominated site (90% silt + clay, 10% sand) consistently maintained greater biomass than plants from the cooler, sand-dominated site (60% sand, 40% silt + clay). Plants from both populations were highly plastic for root length and clonal shoot size, with both increasing when planted in clay-dominated compared to sand-dominated sediment. Plants from the clay-dominated site grew longer rhizomes in foreign sediment while plants from the sand-dominated site had no change in this plant trait, indicating some measure of home site advantage with respect to sediment conditions. Porewater sulfide also exhibited this pattern where concentrations were very low in clay-dominated sediment for all plants, but in the sand-dominated treatment, only plants native to sand-dominated sediment maintained porewater sulfide concentrations below toxic levels. These patterns may be mediated by microbiome differences between populations as roots from plants native to clay-dominated sediment had more fixed microbiomes between treatments compared to plants native to sand-dominated sediment. These results support that sediment type partially mediates home site advantage in eelgrass populations and suggest differential population responses may be mediated by the associated microbiome. 

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