Professor Gary Kendrick

Professor Gary Kendrick is a leading marine ecologist in the areas of marine benthic biodiversity, resource mapping, seagrass and seaweed ecology and seagrass restoration. He has worked with government and industry to determine needs and develop solutions for climate change threats as well as environmental and conservation issues in Australia’s exclusive economic zone.   

He has successfully led numerous interdisciplinary teams to address gaps in our knowledge by mapping benthic resources in the shallow continental shelf around Australia and in studying the environmental impacts on seagrasses and seaweeds of commercial fishing, oil and gas infrastructure, dredging, coastal development, coastal eutrophication and desalination outfalls.   

Throughout the podcast, Gary discusses the idea of awareness: of not just when seagrass was recognised as being lost in Australia, but the awareness of how important it is to both animals and humans. He provides anecdotes on the types of ways we used seagrass, which ultimately led to its decline over the last 240 years. According to Gary, we are losing one football field of seagrass every 30 minutes, globally.

Drawing from his extensive travels, he compares Australia’s efforts on the international stage, giving us a comprehensive overview of where we stand globally in seagrass preservation. He explores the major international policies that have shaped seagrass protection in Australia, highlighting the ongoing work needed to secure seagrass ecosystems in international law. 

His seagrass restoration work previously focused on technical solutions and developments to improve the restoration success of seagrasses. More recently, however, his emphasis has shifted to working with the community to develop restoration at larger scales. He presently works on supporting the large OzFish community program, Seeds for Snapper, which is a collaboration with the University of Western Australia that is scaling up seagrass restoration from 100m2 to hectares using seeds of the seagrass Posidonia australis.  

Professor Kendrick emphasises the power of community involvement in seagrass restoration. Learn why he believes that programs like “Seeds For Snapper” are not just for experts but something everyone should engage in, emphasising the collective responsibility we all share in preserving these invaluable ecosystems. 

With years spent swimming amid these submerged meadows, Gary shares how he endeavours to quantify the value of a square meter of seagrass, unveiling a surprising truth that challenges our preconceptions. He delves into the methods that work and those that don’t. It’s a percentage game and he explains why restoring even 10% of seagrass seeds is a monumental achievement in the world of conservation.  

Gary’s long-term research goal is to develop a predictive framework for understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics between marine species distributions, their biology and the physical environment. His work on this has identified appropriate descriptors of extensive historical losses of seagrass habitat due to human impacts and modelled emergent landscape-scale phenomena related to the clonal growth of seagrasses at the shoot scale and the evolution of seagrass landscapes. This line of research has led him to question our understanding of sexual recruitment in seagrasses and has led to recent work on dispersal, recruitment and genetics of seagrasses. 

In a bid to provide context to recently published papers, Professor Kendrick provides insight into a major report released in 2022, which shows that one single seagrass plant occupies all of Shark Bay – a realisation that has opened his mind for what is possible with seagrass restoration in Australia. 

Throughout the episodes, Gary sheds light on other restoration programs happening around both Australia and the world. Gary highlights another community seagrass restoration collaboration with indigenous Malgana Land and Sea Rangers is presently underway in Gathaagudu (Shark Bay, WA) to replace seagrasses lost during the 2011 extreme marine heatwave (MHW).  

He is also a major science advisor to the more commercial Tidal Moon project that is planning to plant 100 hectares of seagrass in Shark Bay over the next three years to mitigate carbon loss from the death of seagrasses 12 years ago.  

This episode uncovers:  

• The underpinning issues driving seagrass loss both in Australia and around the world.
• The science behind cloning seagrass and what it means for seagrass restoration going forward.
• Where are Australia ranked on the international stage when it comes to seagrass preservation?
• How much is a square meter of seagrass really worth?
• What is the difference between seagrass and seaweed?
• Is Seeds For Snapper actually working? How important is community involvement here?

 Further Reading / Watching:

Worlds largest plant seagrass meadow shark-bay giant clone

Cross-depth connectivity shows that deep kelps may act as refugia by reseeding climate-vulnerable shallow beds

Historic and contemporary biogeographic perspectives on range-wide spatial genetic structure in a widespread seagrass

Marine heatwave and reduced light scenarios cause species-specific metabolomic changes in seagrasses under ocean warming

Ocean connectivity and habitat characteristics predict population genetic structure of seagrass in an extreme tropical setting

Optimizing the restoration of the threatened seagrass Posidonia australis: plant traits influence restoration success