Award: OCE-1906651

Seagrasses provide ecologically and economically important services including water filtration, fisheries habitat provision, and carbon sequestration. North Carolina seagrasses include Zostera marina, Halodule wrightii, and Ruppia maritima. Hurricanes in the Atlantic have increased in frequency and intensity in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue. Since Z. marina dies back in late summer in NC, it provides little to no aboveground cover during peak hurricane season, while a meadow that contains greater amounts of H. wrightii maintains cover year-round. Consequently, mixed-species meadows may provide more protection to the Z. marina seed bank from hurricanes than Z. marina-dominated meadows, potentially resulting in less impacts to seed bank structure and function. Seed density, seed viability, seagrass biomass, and shoot density measurements were taken from three sites in Middle Marsh, NC from April 2018 to August 2020. The results provided no evidence of greater seed density, seed viability, seagrass biomass, or shoot density in the mixed-species site that maintains cover during hurricane season relative to the Z. marina-dominated sites. Overall, this study suggests that seagrass cover during hurricane season does not have a strong influence on the structure and function of the Z. marina seed bank or the ability of mixed-annual Z. marina meadows to recover from hurricanes in NC. In addition to changing habitat structure, major storms can alter coastal ecosystem functioning in a multitude of direct and indirect ways. From 2010-2020, six hurricanes impacted the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. Using monthly trawl and contemporaneous seagrass surveys conducted in an estuary at this subtropical-temperate-zone boundary over the last decade, we examined responses of seagrass-associated nekton to tropical cyclones to evaluate whether these disturbances changed the nursery role of shallow-water biogenic habitats. Over seasonal scales, nekton catch rates and species richness indicated no effect of hurricanes. Similarly, nekton community composition appeared unaffected by storm passage over seasonal scales. Within storm years, however, we did note a short-term (within three weeks) relationship between storm intensity and nekton catch rates, with lower catches in years with stronger storm impacts. The overall resilience exhibited by fishes was likely underpinned by the relative stability of the seagrass habitat itself, which appeared principally undamaged by storms. These findings suggest that the nursery role of these shallow-water habitats largely persisted despite notable physiochemical disturbance. A remaining, pressing question appears to be whether seagrass-associated fishes in temperature/sub-tropical systems will remain relatively insensitive to storm impacts if the frequency and intensity of these disturbances increase as one syndrome of global climate change. Last Modified: 07/12/2021 Submitted by: Fredrick J Fodrie