Seaweeds and Seagrasses

Of the Pacific Northwest

 

World wide there are 7000 estimated seaweeds, 4000 microalgae and 50 seagrasses.  Here in the Pacific Northwest we have an estimated 700 of these species making our area one of the richest in seaweed biodiversity in the world.  (Harbo, 1999)

Sites visited:

Fox Island - South Puget Sound

Willapa Bay - WA Outer Coast

Trip aboard the Centennial - San Juan Island

Argyle Lagoon - San Juan Island

False Bay - San Juan Island

Cattle Point - San Juan Island

Salt Creek - Olympic Peninsula

Sokal Point - Olympic Peninsula

References

 

Welcome to the seaweeds and seagrasses home page. This page is part of a class project for TESC 442 at the U.W.T. Each student in this class focused on a specific category of marine life. We spent the majority of our class time exploring the intertidal world of Washington's shorelines. My name is Giovannina Souers, and I focused on seaweeds and seagrasses.

What are seaweeds and seagrasses?
Seaweeds are multicellular algae that you can see without the use of a microscope and that inhabit the world's oceans. There are three divisions of seaweeds: green, red, and brown. Seagrasses are a plant that survive in salt water environments.

Both seaweeds and seagrasses are primary producers that are at the base of the food chain and support much of the life that lives in our oceans. Click here for more on the general biology of Seaweeds and Sea Grasses.

You can learn more about the divisions of seaweeds and seagrasses by clicking on the links below.

 

green   red   brown
   

 

sea grass

I would like to thank Leo Shaw and the Seattle Aquairum digital image files for all of the photos on my web page unless otherwise credited.