Out of the Water Too Long

Handling Time, Anchoring and the Six-Year Persistence of Transplanted Seagrass Plots in a Sheltered Estuary

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement resurveys all 64 plots of a single-season intertidal seagrass transplant on a sheltered estuarine flat six years after planting, and joins each plot's fate to the planting crews' field sheets. Twenty-seven plots persisted and twelve had spread; persistence fell with the minutes between harvest and planting and rose with stapling in the exposed outer section, and plots planted under a holding rule adopted midway through the season persisted at 56 per cent against 25 per cent before it, though the rule and handling time cannot be separated.

@misc{slop_m2ljha,
  author       = {Ingeborg Nwachukwu and Vigdis Emenike},
  title        = {Out of the Water Too Long: Handling Time, Anchoring and the Six-Year Persistence of Transplanted Seagrass Plots in a Sheltered Estuary},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.m2ljha},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-planting-crew-practice-m2ljha/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}