{"id":7889,"date":"2026-03-12T02:43:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/?page_id=7889"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:16:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:16:04","slug":"occurrence-of-seagrass-in-barbados","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/obssg\/occurrence-of-seagrass-in-barbados\/","title":{"rendered":"Seagrass in Barbados"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAVIGATION
\nThis page is a sub-page of ObsSG<\/strong><\/a>, a top-level page on
\nthe website Barbados Fringing Reefs and Seagrass Beds<\/strong><\/a>
\n(www.versicolor.ca\/barbados).
\nGo to ObsSG<\/strong><\/a> for a list of other subpages in this section
\nof the website.<\/small><\/p>\n

\n

ON THIS PAGE
\n– Seagrasses are flowering plants<\/a>
\n– The Species in Barbados<\/a>
\n– Occurrence and State of Seagrass Beds in Barbados<\/a>
\n– Occurrence of seagrasses in more diffuse aggregations<\/a>
\n– More about seagrasses in the Caribbean (links)<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

DRAFTING…<\/p>\n

Seagrasses are flowering plants<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Mixed stand of Syringodoim filiforme<\/em> (tubular leaves, more abundant) and Thalassia testudinum (flat leaves, less abundant) at Bath Barbados in 2005.<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

“Seagrasses” are flowering plants (angiosperms) occurring in saltwater; they belong to the same major group of angiosperms, the monocotyledons<\/a>, to which true grasses (graminae) belong. They are “higher plants” with vascular (conductive) tissues, leaves roots and flowers, to be distinguished from “seaweeds” which are algae and are lower plants without vascular tissues and without flowers. There are approx. 70 species worldwide.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Species in Barbados<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Sketches of seagrass species occurring in south Florida from Zieman (1982); 4 of these occur in Barbados<\/p><\/div>\n

Of the 6 species of seagrass commonly found in the Caribbean region, four are found in Barbados:<\/p>\n

(i)<\/em>\u00a0Thalassia testudinum <\/a>(Turtle Grass)<\/em>
\n(ii)<\/em>\u00a0Syringodium filiforme<\/a>\u00a0(Manatee Grass)<\/em>
\n(iii)<\/em> Halodule wrightii<\/a>\u00a0(Shoal Grass)<\/em>
\n(iv)<\/em>\u00a0Halophila decipiens<\/a> (Paddle Grass)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of those species,\u00a0 T. testudinum<\/em>, S. filiforme<\/em> and H. wrightii<\/em> are common; H. decipiens<\/em> uncommon.<\/p>\n

Halophila stipulacea<\/em>, a seagrass originating in the Indo-Pacific region and occurring in the Caribbean as an invasive species has not yet been recorded in Barbados. The f<\/a>irst\u00a0 known occurrence of\u00a0H. stipulacea<\/em>\u00a0in the tropical Atlantic was a report for Grenada<\/a> in 2002; Grenada lies\u00a0approx. 215 km to the SW of Barbados.\u00a0Scheibling et al. (2018)<\/a> and Patriquin et al. (2024)<\/a>\u00a0report on the occurrence of\u00a0Halophila stipulacea\u00a0<\/em>around the island of Carriacou (Grenada) in 2016.<\/p>\n

Distinct aggregations of seagrasses are referred to as “seagrass beds”. They may be composed of any one of species (i) to (iii) above or of mixtures of those species.<\/p>\n

Often these beds are elevated above the surroundings because of the sediment-trapping qualities of seagrasses, and appear as dark patches in aerial views.<\/p>\n

Typically these seagrasses occur at depths of less than 5 m, but in Barbados they may be found down to circa 10 m.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Occurrence and State of Seagrass Beds in Barbados<\/strong><\/p>\n

From A NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY STRATEGY & ACTION PLAN FOR BARBADOS<\/strong> (2002)\u00a0<\/a>, some line breaks and punctuation\/bolding inserted:<\/p>\n

\u201cSeagrass areas, commonly known as seagrass beds or meadows, are distributed along the coast in\u00a0shallow water where sunlight penetration is adequate to facilitate photosynthesis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Delcan\u00a0(1994b), reported seagrass beds
\n\u2013 along the west coast<\/strong> at Shermans, Six Men\u2019s Bay, Speightstown\u00a0and Brighton;
\n\u2013 along the southwest coast<\/strong> at Bridgetown, Hastings, Rockley, Worthing, St.Lawrence, Dover, Maxwell, Welches, Oistins, Enterprise and Atlantic Shores of Barbados;
\n\u2013 and\u00a0along the east coast<\/strong> at Bath and Conset Bay.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere is evidence that the quality of the local coastal marine water is deteriorating due to\u00a0increased sedimentation, eutrophication and sewage pathogens, localised increases in\u00a0<\/em>temperature, decreases in salinity, and perhaps increases in toxins (Delcan, 1994a).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Seagrass beds are much less abundant around Barbados than they are around most other Caribbean islands, as Barbados lacks the large protected bays, estuarine areas, and barrier reef lagoons where they are typically abundant.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the already limited area of seagrass beds in Barbados has declined significantly from the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Comment Brathwaite et al, 2008, pp 48-9 in Barbados: A Coral Paradise<\/strong>\u00a0(Miller Publishing), paragraphing and bolding\u00a0 inserted:<\/p>\n

Seagrass beds have faired little better than mangroves on the island. Areas<\/strong> where the habitat was once prolific such as Worthing Lagoon in the south and Bath in the east have either steadily or abruptly lost their grassy marine meadows over the course of the last 40 years.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

These fish nurseries and natural sediment sinks have all but been lost from the southern coastline, with only a few pockets of growth remaining in the St. Lawrence area. Here the demise has been witnessed since the 1960\u2019s when the lagoon once hosted a mature seagrass meadow comprising dense mats of turtle grass and associated macroalgal species, sea eggs and conch.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By the 1990\u2019S the area of the meadow had declined considerably and the early 2000\u2019s witnessed a drastic decline and virtual disappearance of any seagrass in this area.<\/strong> This was a result of a combination of deteriorating water quality and changing sediment transport patterns within this dynamic area, together with a bumper recruitment of the white sea egg which grazed the grass blades en masse an~their underground rhizomes as sand erosion exposed them.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is ironic that the sea egg, much prized as a local delicacy,decimated the last remaining beds within the lagoon, leaving bare sand in their wake. Recent studies of the lagoon however are revealing signs of recovery of seagrass and corals within the area.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thus, barring the occurrence of severe natural or man-made disturbances in the near future, there is hope that Worthing Lagoon may one day be covered in a lush seagrass meadow again.<\/em><\/p>\n

At Bath, the loss of seagrasses is less severe, as this area is much less prone to human induced impacts than the heavily developed south coast.<\/strong> However, changes in water quality due to increased levels of development, land use changes and increased volumes of sediment carried to the nearshore in storm water run-off have taken their toll on the habitat.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regrettably, the Bath seagrass beds, the largest sweep of seagrass beds in Barbados followed a demise much like that which occurred at St. Lawrence circa 20 to 25 years earlier. See Bath 2024 & 2025<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n

It appears (2024, 2025)\u00a0 there remain only patches of Turtle Grass (Thalassia testudinum<\/em>) beds anywhere in Barbados, but I have not made a formal survey to back that up.<\/p>\n

\n
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Tracing from aerial photographs showing putative turtlegrass (T. testudinum) beds.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a01969 Notes on Distribution\u00a0 of Seagrasses at Barbados<\/strong><\/p>\n

At right is a tracing from aerial photographs I produced in 1967 showing all of the dark patches\/putative turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum<\/em>) beds. I checked them out by direct observation.<\/p>\n

As written in notes from 1967:<\/p>\n

West Coast<\/strong>
\n– Sparse growths of Thalassia<\/em> in reef flat areas of reefs near Speightstown, Black Rock.<\/p>\n

NE Coast<\/strong>
\n– Beds of Thalassia<\/em> in sand substrate in Gays Cove,\u00a0 (or “Cove bay”) a small bay with coral rocks across the mouth.<\/p>\n

Comment (not in written notes) I still recall vividly going to Cove Bay to investigate the dark patches in the aerial photos; there was a coarse rubble beach with a fairly steep descent into deeper water and I was greeted on that slope by a very large barracuda \u2013 my first such encounter. I left without further investigation. (Later on I got used to the presence of large, apparently curious, barracuda lurking in the seagrass bed at Bath as I worked, their jaws opening and closing – and showing their teeth – to breathe, not to threaten.)<\/small><\/p>\n

– Sparse growths on rocky nearshore flats in surf zone along the Scotland district; attached to rock surface, transitory coarse sand.<\/p>\n

Martin’s Bay<\/strong>
\n– Sparse growths of Thalassia<\/em> on extensive rocky flat area is sand-filled pits etc.; small amounts of sand; rhizomes attached to rocky substrate.<\/p>\n

Congor Bay to Conset Bay<\/strong>
\n– Extensive continuous beds of Thalassia<\/em> bordering the shore. Swells broken by coral limestone rocks circa 400 m from shore. Thalassia, Cymodocea,\u00a0 Diplanthera<\/em> all present<\/p>\n

SE Coast<\/strong>
\n– Patches of Thalassia<\/em> along the shore starting at southern part of Long Bay to South Point. Generally in rubble or in sand covered coral rock.<\/p>\n

S Coast- Oistens Bay\u00a0<\/strong>
\n– Beds close to shore in depths to 20 feet. Generally attached to coral rocks. Thin sand cover. Mainly Thalassia.<\/em><\/p>\n

S Coast St. Lawrence to Bridgetown:\u00a0<\/strong>
\n– Seagrass beds in sand behind the mostly dead reef areas and inshore in rubble areas. Thalassia, Diplanthera, Cymodocea\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Carlisle Bay <\/strong>
\n– Sand covered Thalassia<\/em> beds to circa 7 feet depth<\/p>\n

\n

Occurrence of seagrasses in more diffuse aggregations<\/strong><\/p>\n

The descriptions above refer generally\u00a0 to \u201cseagrass beds\u201d rather than to seagrass species per se which can include, beside occurrences in distinct \u201cbeds\u201d, sparsely distributed plants that don\u2019t form distinct beds and don\u2019t show up as \u201cdark patches\u201d visible from shore, from the air or from a boat (as do \u201cseagrass beds\u201d).<\/p>\n

Some examples from recent years are shown below. Except for the first, which is a patch of Halophila decipiens<\/em>, the photos are of sparsely distributed Halodule wrightii<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, both areas where I observed the sparsely\u00a0distributed Halodule wrightii<\/em>. in recent years \u2013 Carlisle Bay on the SW coast, and SurfSide in the MPA on the west coast \u2013 are frequented by green turtle, a seagrass-grazing species. As well, in Carlise Bay, I observed a Red Cushion Star, a species once common in seagrass beds of the Caribbean but that is much less common these days.\u00a0So despite the low density of\u00a0 seagrass in these areas, they still seem to host some of the biodiversity characteristic of the more dense aggregations in readily recognizable”seagrass beds”.<\/p>\n

The Halodule wrightii<\/em> at SurfSide which I observed in 2024 and in earlier years, appeared to have been completely eliminated when I visited the area in Feb and Mar of 2025.\u00a0 I suspect the causative agent was massive physical disturbance by swells generated by Hurricane Beryl, those impacting Barbados on June 30\/July 1, 2024. Coincidentally or not, green turtles which had been common at Surfside in earlier years, were completely absent in Feb and Mar of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n
\n

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2016 -#580 Halophila decipiens <\/em>specimen. <\/strong>Coin is 23 mm width. View iNaturalist record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n\n\n\n
\n\n
\n

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2024 \u2013 #375 Green Turtle\u00a0on sandy bottom with sparse Halodule wrightii<\/em>\u00a0at<\/strong> Carlisle Bay<\/strong>, circa 7 m depth,\u00a0 Mar 21, 2024<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n\n\n\n
\n\n
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2023 #212 Green Turtle on sandy bottom with sparse Halodule wrightii<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 (some with green algal epiphytes) at Surfside in the Folkestone MPA<\/strong>, circa 7 m depth Jan 27,\u00a0 2023<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

More about seagrasses in the Caribbean (links)<\/strong>
\n– Caribbean seagrasses provide services worth $255B annually, including vast carbon storage, study shows<\/strong><\/a>
\nMichigan News, University of Michigan, June 21, 2023 “Discussions of valuable but threatened ocean ecosystems often focus on coral reefs or coastal mangrove forests. Seagrass meadows get a lot less attention, even though they provide wide-ranging services to society and store lots of climate-warming carbon.But the findings of a new University of Michigan-led study show that seagrass ecosystems deserve to be at the forefront of the global conservation agenda, according to the authors. It\u2019s the first study to put a dollar value on the many services\u2014from storm protection to fish habitat to carbon storage\u2014provided by seagrasses across the Caribbean, and the numbers are impressive.”<\/small><\/p>\n

– Caribbean-Wide, Long-Term Study of Seagrass Beds Reveals Local Variations, Shifts in Community Structure and Occasional Collapse<\/strong><\/a>
\nby Brigitta I. van Tussenbroek et al., 2014 in Plos One. “The CARICOMP monitoring network gathered standardized data from 52 seagrass sampling stations at 22 sites (mostly Thalassia testudinum-dominated beds in reef systems) across the Wider Caribbean twice a year over the period 1993 to 2007 (and in some cases up to 2012). Wide variations in community total biomass (285 to >2000 g dry m\u22122) and annual foliar productivity of the dominant seagrass T. testudinum (<200 and >2000 g dry m\u22122) were found among sites. Solar-cycle related intra-annual variations in T. testudinum leaf productivity were detected at latitudes > 16\u00b0N. Hurricanes had little to no long-term effects on these well-developed seagrass communities, except for 1 station, where the vegetation was lost by burial below \u223c1 m sand. At two sites (5 stations), the seagrass beds collapsed due to excessive grazing by turtles or sea-urchins (the latter in combination with human impact and storms)…”<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAVIGATION This page is a sub-page of ObsSG, a top-level page on the website Barbados Fringing Reefs and Seagrass Beds (www.versicolor.ca\/barbados). Go to ObsSG for a list of other subpages in this section of the website. ON THIS PAGE – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":5266,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7889","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7889"}],"version-history":[{"count":58,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8786,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7889\/revisions\/8786"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}