Can Tiny Bubbles Help Save the Planet?
Seagrasses store a lot of carbon in their tissues, making them a potential counterweight to rising levels of atmospheric CO2.
Seagrasses are more efficient at storing carbon in the soil or sediment, acre for acre, than a tropical rainforest. That could make them a powerful tool for slowing the rapid rise of atmospheric CO2. The ability to quantify how much carbon a specific seagrass bed stores over time could help governments, businesses and environmental groups better manage these natural carbon sinks. Ken Dunton, a marine biology professor and Preston Wilson, an engineering professor may have found one weird trick to measuring carbon storage in seagrass beds: listening to the sound of tiny bubbles.
With current technologies, being able to accurately measure how much carbon a seagrass bed stores from year to year takes a lot of time, people and money. It requires going out and physically digging up plants and sediments and bringing them back to the lab and spending days analyzing them—and doing this repeatedly over time.
The new method Dunton and Wilson are developing relies on a simple idea: As seagrasses turn sunlight into energy, they absorb carbon dioxide from the water, store the carbon in their roots and other tissues and release the oxygen back into the water, some in the form of bubbles. The more bubbles a seagrass plant emits during the day, the more carbon it stores. By continuously measuring the sound intensity, they can infer how much carbon is stored over time.
Ken Dunton (left) discusses field research with team members at East Flats, a seagrass meadow near Port Aransas, Texas. Photo credit: Marc Airhart.
Episode credits
Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper
Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear
Cover image: Concept for a new way to infer carbon storage in seagrass beds using sound intensity recorded with hydrophones (black). Illustration credit: 5W Infographics.
Researchers use a vibrating motor and plastic tube to drill a sediment core from a seagrass meadow called East Flats near Port Aransas, Texas. Photo credit: Marc Airhart.
Preston Wilson at a seagrass meadow called East Flats near Port Aransas, Texas. Photo credit: Marc Airhart.
Kevin Lee (left) holds a sediment core and discusses the research with Megan Ballard in a wet lab at the UT Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, Texas. Photo credit: Marc Airhart.
About Point of Discovery
Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.
