BACKGROUND

      Florida Bay is a nursery area for commercial and recreational fish and invertebrates including red drum, spotted seatrout, spiny lobster, and pink shrimp. The seagrass die-off that became obvious in the early 1980's stimulated research on juvenile animals that depend on the seagrass community for feeding and refuge. The study by Thayer et al. (1999) is one of few that directly compares fish and seagrass density over the 1980's and 1990's. The fish that are most abundant in Florida seagrass meadows are not ones that students will likely know (e.g. various killifish, pinfish) but they may be prey to items for larger, "sexier," fish such as grunt or snapper also found there.

      In this study, fish were collected with a trawl towed between 2 boats at a constant speed for 2 minutes. Grasses were measured by dividing 3 random 1x1 m quadrats into sixteen 0.062 m2 subsections which were collected by hand; counting was done in the lab.

      For images of seagrasses see http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/seagrass/images/healthy.htm and http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov/pgallery/pgflorida/pgflorida.html.