{"id":13479,"date":"2025-03-05T10:23:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T04:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=13479"},"modified":"2025-04-02T04:42:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T23:12:45","slug":"what-is-seagrass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-seagrass\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Seagrass?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Seagrass Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>According to recent study, seagrass has been declining at a rate of 1-2 per cent per year for the past century and nearly 5 percent of species are now endangered.<\/p>\n<h2>About Seagrass<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a flowering<strong> plant<\/strong> that <strong>grows submerged<\/strong> in shallow <strong>marine waters like bays and lagoons.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They are so-named because most species have long green, grass-like leaves.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Characteristics of Seagrass<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Seagrasses have roots, stems, and leaves and produce flowers and seeds.<\/li>\n<li>Like terrestrial plants, <strong>seagrass also photosynthesizes<\/strong> and manufactures their own food and releases oxygen.<\/li>\n<li>They evolved around 100 million years ago, and there are approximately 72 different seagrass species that belong to four major groups.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Distribution of Seagrass<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>They are found on <strong>all continents except Antarctica.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>tropical waters<\/strong> of the <strong>Indo-Pacific hold the highest diversity<\/strong> of seagrasses in the world.<\/li>\n<li>India too has vast seagrass meadows, home to 16 species of seagrass with major concentrations in the <strong>Gulf of Mannar, Palk Bay, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep Islands and the Gulf of Kutch.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Advantages of Seagrass<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>They are better than trees for <strong>capturing carbon<\/strong> and providing food for millions of people. Beyond supporting marine life, seagrass also acts <strong>as a natural barrier, protecting coastal communities from storms and erosion.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>These underwater plants can <strong>store carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests,<\/strong> locking it away for thousands of years.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Threats:<\/strong> Pollution from cities, industries, and agriculture continues to degrade these meadows, while coastal development and tourism put additional pressure on fragile habitats of Seagrass.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Seagrass FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1:<\/strong> What is sea grass used for?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong> Seagrasses support commercial fisheries and biodiversity, clean the surrounding water and help take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2:<\/strong> What is the significance of sea grass?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong> Seagrasses provide shelter and food to an incredibly diverse community of animals, from tiny invertebrates to large fish, crabs, turtles, marine mammals and birds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/wildlife-biodiversity\/seagrass-conservation-key-to-global-biodiversity-and-climate-targets-studies-show\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DTH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seagrass is a flowering plant that grows submerged in shallow marine waters like bays and lagoons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}