Source Texts
Text
Chesapeake Bay seagrass meadows constitute crucial habitats for many aquatic species. Historically, eelgrass has been predominant, but widgeon grass is proving better suited to recent increases in sea temperature, tolerating heat better and growing faster than eelgrass does. Although the increase in widgeon grass has been associated with a substantial increase in total seagrass coverage in the bay, researchers caution that the latter change does not necessarily make the seagrass ecosystem as a whole more resilient to environmental shocks.