Britain’s seagrasses were disappearing; a Scottish community transplanted mature shoots instead of seeds and achieved 97% survival | World news

Britain’s seagrass meadows have suffered decades of decline, but a community-led project on the west coast of Scotland is showing that restoring them does not always require starting from seed. Seawilding, a Scottish marine restoration charity, has been experimenting with transplanting mature shoots of Zostera marina from healthy donor meadows to areas where seagrasses have been lost. The approach has produced surprising initial results at Loch Craignish in Argyll, including a 97% survival rate in a 2025 trial. In another restoration plot, seabed cover increased from 10% to more than 70% in 15 months. Together, the tests have created around 0.3 hectares of new seagrass habitat, offering a promising alternative to restoring an ecosystem that supports marine life, stabilizes sediments and stores carbon.

Scotland’s disappearing seagrasses get new restoration approach

Seagrasses are flowering marine plants that form underwater meadows in shallow coastal waters. Scotland has two native species, Zostera marina and Zostera noltii, and Z. marina, commonly known as seagrass, is found widely along the country’s coast. These habitats provide breeding and feeding areas for marine organisms, help stabilize sediments, and contribute to coastal protection and blue carbon storage. However, seagrass beds are vulnerable to physical disturbance, poor water quality, disease and other pressures. NatureScot notes that modeled estimates for Britain indicate an overall decline of at least 44% in seagrass beds, although it also warns that historical and Scottish data are incomplete and the extent of the change is difficult to establish precisely.Seawilding began its community-led restoration work in Loch Craignish, Argyll, with previous efforts focusing on collecting and planting seagrass seeds. The organization says that for about a decade, UK restoration efforts have largely focused on seed-based approaches, but establishing large areas of new grassland has often proven difficult. Starting in 2024, Seawilding began testing a different strategy by taking adult shoots from existing healthy grasslands and transplanting them to suitable restoration sites..

Instead of waiting for seeds, the team moved mature plants.

The key difference in Seawilding’s new approach is that the restoration team starts with live adult seagrass shoots rather than relying entirely on seeds to germinate and establish new plants. Tens of thousands of seedlings have been transplanted from donor meadows to restoration areas in Loch Craignish. The idea is relatively simple: establish live plants immediately on a suitable seabed rather than waiting for the seeds to germinate, survive their initial development and eventually become mature plants.The technique is unprecedented. NatureScot’s Scottish seagrass restoration guide notes that transplanting has been used elsewhere and may offer advantages where restoration needs to overcome physical problems that make establishment from seed difficult. However, transplanting can also be much more labor-intensive because the plants must be harvested and replanted. The Scottish guidance therefore emphasizes that restoration success depends on choosing a technique appropriate to the environmental conditions rather than assuming that one method will work everywhere.The Seawilding project also emerged from several years of experimentation. The organization says it tried multiple restoration methods before the adult outbreak approach began producing the reported results in 2025. That story is important because the 97% figure did not come from a single attempt that was immediately successful. Repeated tests followed to determine the best way to collect, transport and establish the plants.

A 2025 trial recorded 97% survival

The strongest result came from a new transplant trial conducted in 2025. Seawilding reported that 97% of transplanted sprouts survived, while the trial area also recorded an average four-fold increase in seabed cover in six months. This result is independent of another restoration plot where cover increased from 10% to more than 70% in 15 months. Taken together, the results indicate that transplanted adult plants can establish quickly under the conditions tested at Loch Craignish.The oldest plot began receiving transplanted sprouts in July 2024. In the following 15 months, the proportion of seabed covered with seagrass had increased from 10% to more than 70%. Throughout the reported restoration work, Seawilding says the intervention has resulted in approximately 0.3 hectares of newly created seagrass habitat. The organization describes the results as one of the most successful seagrass habitat establishments in the UK to date, although those claims should be understood as project-level results and not evidence that seagrass declines in Britain have been reversed.The project also investigated what happened to the original donor grassland after the sprouts were removed. Seawilding reports that harvesting 25% of the sprouts from a test area had limited apparent effect, with sprout density returning to near-natural levels in about five months. This is particularly important because a restoration technique would be difficult to scale if plant harvesting simply damaged existing healthy grasslands.

Local people are helping to rebuild the underwater habitat.

The Scottish project stands out not only for its restoration technique but also for its community-led structure. Seawilding describes itself as Scotland’s first community marine habitat restoration charity, and local volunteers have been involved in monitoring, planting and other stages of the work. The organisation’s previous project at Loch Craignish was developed with technical support from the Seagrass Project and research and environmental monitoring from the Scottish Marine Science Association.Community involvement has also been important in understanding the state of existing grasslands before restoration begins. The NatureScot case study describes local residents surveying Craignish Lake using transects and quadrats to record seagrass cover, while snorkellers and paddlers have helped with field observations and seed collection. The previous project also held public restoration events where residents could learn about seagrasses and participate in harvesting and planting activities.This community involvement fits with a broader body of research showing that restoration projects can benefit when local communities are involved in the design and conduct of conservation rather than being treated simply as observers. A 2025 peer-reviewed study into a major UK seagrass restoration project in Wales found that shifting the focus towards co-production helped rebuild trust between the restoration team and local stakeholders. The study also found that the restored site had begun to show positive ecological development, although continued large-scale grassland recovery remained incomplete.

The results are promising, but the method still needs broader testing.

The results from Loch Craignish are encouraging, but do not yet establish that transplanting mature shoots works everywhere in Britain. Seagrass survival depends on factors including depth, sediment, exposure, water movement, light, and local ecological conditions. NatureScot also identifies important knowledge gaps about Scottish seagrasses, including habitat suitability, connectivity, disease and the ecosystem benefits of restoration.Seawilding is now taking the next step by testing the technique in additional locations along the west coast of Scotland. With the support of the Blue Carbon Trust, trials are planned in Ganavan Bay, near Oban, Loch na Cille and Port na Carraigh on the island of Gigha. Each site aims to test how transplanted sprouts behave in different environmental conditions and whether using locally sourced plants produces different results to sprouts originating from Loch Craignish. Monitoring is planned until 2027.The importance of the project therefore lies less in the claim that a Scottish community has solved seagrass restoration and more in the evidence that a relatively simple change in strategy can produce surprising early results. Instead of waiting for the seeds to establish naturally, the team is moving mature plants to suitable habitat and monitoring whether they survive and expand. If the approach continues to work at different sites without harming donor grasslands, it could become another practical tool for restoring Britain’s fragmented underwater grasslands.