About Restoration Research

Restoring manatee grass (Syringodium filiforme) provides habitat for many fish, including these spiny lobsters.

The RC has been integrally involved in providing small amounts of money to support basic research on the structure and function of coastal, marine and estuarine systems and to develop and evaluate restoration techniques in Alaska, California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Massachusetts on such diverse habitats as salt marshes, seagrasses, coral reefs and riverine systems important to salmon. Examples of our research include:

• Determining the use of different kinds of salt marshes by fishes and invertebrates and evaluation of the importance of creeks and channels in these marshes for movement of organisms--this has been important in recommendations on design of restored marshes
  
• Development and evaluation of different restoration and planting techniques for seagrasses and evaluation of the rates of return of fishes to these restored habitats
  
• Evaluation of the use of oyster shell to stabilize created marsh shorelines
  
• Recovery of salt marsh habitats and fauna from oil spill damage
  
• Assessments of the effects of different sediments used in restoration on habitat use by flatfish
  
• Restoration of coral reef habitat
  
• Evaluation of strategies for bay scallop enhancement as a potential resource restoration measure
  
• Experimental migratory salmon creek rehabilitation