Persistence of the Eel-Grass Disease and Parasite on the American Atlantic Coast

Abstract

EARLY in the summer, through facilities extended by Mr. John Lynch, of the U.S. Biological Survey, I was able to make a number of investigations of the existing eel-grass beds along the middle Atlantic coast, in the range of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. Mr. Lynch also supplied me with systematically taken specimens from beds farther north and south, Casco Bay, Maine, to Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, and with repeated observations from a number of points between. These studies were undertaken to discover to what extent the increasing number of optimistic reports concerning new and larger beds might indicate an effective return of the plant. For the greater part such reports describe late spring growths, during the season of rapid vegetative development, and give no clue of the plant's ability to withstand conditions arising in the less favourable warmer months, when the parasitic Labyrinthula is most active, or of its value as winter food for migratory birds, a matter of practical concern.