16 Mar (Sat): TeamSeagrass joins Celebrating Singapore Shores at Berlayar Creek

Save the date! A chance to win plenty of great prizes! Join fun games as TeamSeaGrass volunteers share about Singapore's seagrass and the important role they play in our marine ecosystem.

The event is FREE, no registration required. Specially for kids and the family, there will be lots of other community groups offering games and prizes, nature walks and films. Come and join us!

Sign the petition for World Seagrass Day!

Support the World Seagrass Association's bid for an international World Seagrass Day.

To raise awareness on the importance of seagrass meadows, threats to them, what happens if we lose them. A day of global recognition is a crucial step towards saving seagrasses.

Sign the petition (scroll to the bottom of the page).

June 2018: International Seagrass Biology Workshop (ISBW) in Singapore!

Let's talk seagrass at the International Seagrass Biology Workshop (ISBW13)

TeamSeaGrass will be contributing to this very special event in 2018! What is ISBW13 about and how can Singapore contribute?

3 Jun (Sat): TeamSeaGrass at Balik Chek Jawa

FREE, no registration required, just come to Chek Jawa! As part of Pesta Ubin, TeamSeaGrass volunteers will be at this Chek Jawa Open House.

Fun for the family: Seagrasses and more!

Volunteer guides will be stationed all over the boardwalk to share about Chek Jawa's amazing wildlife. Fun for the whole family, there will be free colouring sheets and kids activities too!

TeamSeagrass and seagrass sex

Thanks to Jose Hong for sharing the work by Dr Siti Maryam Yaakub, Samantha Lai and volunteers of TeamSeagrass, to better understand why seagrasses are dying off at Pulau Semakau and other shores. It appears our seagrasses need to have more sex!

TeamSeagrass in 2008 when seagrasses were still lush.

Data from TeamSeagrass and observations by TeamSeagrass volunteers have been vital to observing this trend. Thanks to all our dedicated seagrassers for your time and effort in helping conserve our natural heritage.

What is seagrass sex? And how YOU can make a difference for our seagrasses.

TeamSeagrass colouring sheet for Pesta Ubin!

Specially for Pesta Ubin 2016, TeamSeagrass is offering this colouring sheet. Have fun and learn more about seagrasses and how you CAN make a difference for Singapore's seagrass meadows.

To get your copies of this colouring sheet, come visit TeamSeaGrass on 4 Jun (Sat) 2016 at the Assembly Area at Ubin Town, or on 5 Jun (Sun) 2016 at Chek Jawa.

Mark Your Calendar for Ubin Day and Festival of Biodiversity

The month of June is an exciting time for TeamSeaGrass as we look forward to be part of two major events that celebrates some of our most favourite things in the world: Pulau Ubin and biodiversity conservation. That’s right folks. TeamSeaGrass will be taking part in Ubin Day on 13 June and Festival of Biodiversity on 27 and 28 June. More information about these two events, including volunteering opportunities can be found below.

 Ubin Day 13 and 14 June 2015

Ubin Day is a time where we all celebrate every bit of Ubin: its culture, kampung life, nature and wildlife, Ubin land and sea. Through these events, we hope to also raise awareness of Pulau Ubin and issues facing Pulau Ubin.

Ubin Day will be happening this weekend (13 and 14 June 2015). TeamSeaGrass will be setting up a booth on 13 June. More information about our booth can be found here. We will be there from 7am to 6pm at the Assembly Area opposite the HSBC Volunteer Hub and if you would like to join us to help out at our booth, please email us at teamseagrass@gmail.com and indicate the duration you would be helping out. We will get back to you with more details.

Otherwise, come visit us and say hi or join in the many activities offered by other groups and get to explore different sides of Ubin.  

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Festival of Biodiversity 27 and 28 June 2015

The Festival of Biodiversity is back for the 4^th year will be held over the weekend of 27 and 28 June at VivoCity.

The Festival is organised by NParks in collaboration with the Biodiversity Roundtable, a group of about 20 key representatives from various sectors of the biodiversity community which TeamSeaGrass is part of.

This year, learn more about local biodiversity through a display featuring 50 species of interesting flora and fauna closely linked to Singapore, a marine exhibition that brings the ocean to you, nature-themed craft workshops and booths showcasing the causes, research and activities of environmental groups!

The Festival is also adding a new element that will add variety and a new level of interactivity with the public: the Festival of Biodiversity Concert at the Amphitheatre (Level 3). The free concert will be played on both evenings. More information about the local musicians who will be performing at the concert can be found here.

For those of you who would like to be involved in the Festival, NParks is calling for volunteers to help them out in various activities such as running the booths, exhibition and children's art and craft workshops! Some of the TeamSeaGrass members have already signed up to help out. If you would also like to volunteer your time to help out at the event, please sign up at http://tinyurl.com/FOB2015Volunteer by 19 June 2015. You can indicate your preferred date, time slots and activities/roles in the form, and more details will be sent to you after you sign up.

See you at the events!

2015 TeamSeaGrass Monitoring Trips Are Up

Hi TeamSeaGrass,

A great 2015 to all. Hope everyone had a great year end break.

The 2015 monitoring dates have been finalised. As usual, they will  also be posted on the blog if you need to refer back.  A really good news is that we can finally return to Pulau Semakau (YAY!!), so we are back to our normal programme once again. Will need to point out that due to really lousy weekend tides this year, there will be 2 weekdays trips. These are CR01 and CJ03. Really sorry about this. Would really appreciate anyone’s effort to come join us for these weekdays trips. Other than that, the trips are actually pretty well spread out this year, with an average of 1 trip per month.

Here's how this year's monitoring dates look like

21 Mar (Sat): Chek Jawa (CJ01) 4pm - 8pm

22 Apr (Wed): Cyrene Reef (CR01) 6am - 10am* (Weekday trip)

9 May (Sat): Pulau Semakau (PS01) 6am - 11am


6 Jun (Sat): Chek Jawa (CJ02) 6am - 11am

5 Jul (Sun): Cyrene Reef (CR02) 6am to 11am*

2 Aug (Sun): Pulau Semakau (PS02) 6am to 10am


28 Oct (Wed): Chek Jawa (CJ03) 3pm to 7pm (Weekday trip)

28 Nov (Sat): Cyrene Reef (CR03) 4pm to 8pm*

12 Dec (Sat): Pulau Semakau (PS03) 4pm to 8pm

The first 3 trips of the year are up for sign ups. I will upload and announce the other sign up dates closer to the trips. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ teamseagrass/database Looking forward to seeing you guys soon.

Festival of Biodiversity, 12 and 13 July 2014

If you're looking for something different to do on a weekend, why not visit the Festival of Biodiversity?

TeamSeaGrass will be participating together with other local blue groups. We'll be at the marine section so do pop by to say hi!

We're also looking for volunteers from among TeamSeaGrass members to engage with the public at the marine section. This section will showcase Singapore's marine biodiversity as well as highlight local marine research and the initiatives of local blue groups. Please sign up here or email Nor Aishah for more information.

See you at the Festival!

Cyrene Reef (15 June 2014)

Greetings readers! TeamSeagrass is back with another successfully completed monitoring survey on Cyrene Reefs! We had a short scare when it started to drizzle on our way to the marina, but thankfully stopped after 20 minutes. We had 9 volunteers (including myself!) for this trip. Monitoring trips to Cyrene require our volunteers to have at least participated in 1 Chek Jawa monitoring and 3 P. Semakau monitoring due to the complexity of the meadows. Therefore, we had a couple of newly-minted volunteers on this trip - Cheryl, Bryan and Pearlynn! Good to see volunteers slowly upgrading their experience with us! :)

The day started out with thick and fluffy clouds and a beautiful sunrise before it was covered by the clouds again... Interestingly, this wasn't how it first looked like when we had arrived...

Sunrise at Cyrene.

We departed really early yesterday morning (5.30am!?) as Alex needed to be back at the marina for a second batch of customers. This meant that we did our very first amphibious landing IN THE DARK! I have to say I was quite worried (although the volunteers were eager to get onto the reefs), but all things turned out well. With my handy torch, I guided them to the sand bar where we gathered and arranged our usual equipment.

Volunteers and coordinators chatting (top). Photo from Johnson Ong; amphibious landing in total darkness! (bottom). Photo from Pearlynn Sim.

Yep... This is how it looked like when we first landed. Fortunately everyone was ever-ready to head out for monitoring! Being kiasu, I suggested to Rachel and Samantha that we should take the volunteers to their Site 2. :P

Johnson shining the light for Boon Seng... Photo from Johnson Ong.

Finally first light at 6.50am! Time to start monitoring!

Sam and I talking about seagrass (I think..?). Photo from Rachel Lim.

We were blessed with a cool and breezy weather with almost no sun! It makes monitoring alot easier, minus the glare and sweat.

Sam at Site 1, T3 (top); Cheryl at Site 2 (bottom). Photo from Johnson Ong.

This trip is much shorter than our usual trips but that didn't stop us from having a look around!

Left: Ribbon worm; Right top: Common seastar (Photo from Johnson Ong); Right bottom: Cake seastar?

We noticed an interesting phenomenon - mass mortality of this shrimp (below)! We tried to save some of them by putting them back into the water but usually they are already dead. Some volunteers were wondering if it could be due to drying out on the sand bar - possible but I was doubtful as these animals tend to survive well under tidal conditions. So what happened here?

Penaeid shrimps? Mass mortality?

Another phenomenon that has been reported since the start of June is bleaching of corals and other zooxanthellate animals... So far, bleaching has been minimal with most corals having a small patch of bleached out. We are expecting higher water temperatures in July and that could have severe repercussions to our coral reefs. :( I think I also found a patch of zoanthids looking pale... Oh no!

Bleaching of soft corals (left) and hard corals (right). Photos from Rachel Lim.

More bleaching records... Zoanthids bleaching? (right bottom)

Before the tides turn, we had our (formal) group photo! Everyone was very sporty! haha...

Our iconic orange life jackets! :)

Volunteers disembarking for the boat. Having selfie time!

A great day out! A BIG thank you to our dedicated volunteers: Johnson, Boon Seng, Bryan, Pearlynn, Cheryl, and Juin Bin, and thank you Rachel and Samantha for making arrangements for the fieldtrip and looking out for everyone! :)

A picture with our iconic Knobbly seastars! :D

We still have another two more monitoring trips for 2014! Do sign up with us at our database!

TeamSeagrass is also now on Twitter and Instagram. Check us out @TeamSeagrass!

ALSO, TeamSeagrass will have a panel at this year's Festival of Biodiversity! Do drop by and say hi! We have something special installed for our volunteers so stay tune to our blog!

Chek Jawa (18 May 2014)

It was another lovely day out at Chek Jawa with a team comprising many newbies and some oldies (but goodies).

We assemble at the Changi Point Jetty in the wee hours of the morning to catch the bumboat to Pulau Ubin.

One bumboat and van ride later...

Everyone's awake! Shocker.

The van taking us into the unknown...

Cyrene Reef (19 April, 2014)

Our first Cyrene Reef trip started off early today at Marina @ Keppel Bay. It also marked the start of the morning low-tides, so the Team had to get adjusted to the early hours again. Despite having to wake up at 5am on a weekend, everyone turned up on time and we left promptly at 6am. 

Siti showing a surprising amount of energy for an early morning trip, while Johannes clearly has other priorities. Photo courtesy of  Rachel.

Chek Jawa (1 March 2014)

Second monitoring trip for 2014 and TeamSeagrass heads to Chek Jawa. It's looking to be another HOT day as the Team boarded the boat to Pulau Ubin.

We had a large group of newbies and some old-bees who had forgotten how to monitor; so we decided today will be a teaching session, where we take it slow and emphasize the finer points of monitoring. After we sorted the old-bees, newbies and stalwarts into groups (this always takes waaay too much time, maybe we need a TeamSeagrass sorting hat?), I did the briefing and we headed out to shore to do the seagrass ID session.

Siti giving the briefing.

Pulau Semakau (28 February 2014)

2014 marks TeamSeagrass's 8th year in monitoring! Woo hoo! Our very first monitoring trip brings us to Pulau Semakau. It is also unfortunately our last trip to Pulau Semakau for the next year or so, as NEA is starting works on the construction of Phase 2's cells to accommodate future waste disposal.

Nevertheless, we managed to gather a team of 20 volunteers - firstly a BIG THANK YOU for coming to join us, especially since it is a weekday. With the recent hot dry spells, we urged our volunteers to protect themselves and hydrate! We also conducted our usual briefing in the NEA building prior to departure onto the seashore...
   

Captain Siti briefing everyone

Of mud and seed banks: Adventures with Seagrass-Watch, 2nd - 3rd Feb 2014.

So this is a totally belated post btw, I was supposed to do it, but all the thesis writing made it very difficult to face a computer and type stuff, so I put it off for as long as I could until it just got ridiculous, so here goes.

Len and Rudi from Seagass-Watch HQ visited us over the CNY weekend and OF COURSE we had to go seagrass adventuring. The aim of the trip was to collect some samples for nutrient analyses, genetic studies and to do a preliminary seed bank study.

Fortunately, the tides are evening tides, which means that we could sleep in after the CNY feasting and festivities before heading out to Chek Jawa on Sunday, 2nd Feb. Once we were there, Sam, Nor Aishah and I set out collecting samples for genetic analyses. There were some curious members of the public out and about and we had to tell them what we were doing. Good thing we have that research permit!

After that, Rudi showed us how to do seed bank sampling. It's a relatively simple method, using very simple tools, namely a PVC pipe and a kitchen sieve. The idea is to get about 10cm of sediment in the corer and sieve out the sediments and look for seeds. Here's Sam showing us how it's done:

Using the Corer (PVC pipe with cap) to sample ~10cm o sediment.

Pulau Semakau (3 November 2013)

What better way to celebrate Deepavali than to do our last monitoring of Pulau Semakau for 2013! It looked like a promising day, with most of the afternoon showers cleared by the time we met up at Marina South Pier. Unfortunately, we had to soldier on without three of our TeamSeagrass troopers – Siti, Rachel and Nor Aisha – who were all down with food poisoning from a very suspect ban mian stall.

TeamSeagrass preparing to leave for yet another public holiday survey

New email for submission of TeamSeagrass Quadrat Photos

This is a reminder, for those of you who haven't been submitting quadrat photos and for those of you who haven't heard. We have a new address to which you should send all future Quadrat Photos from your monitoring.

This address is teamseagrass.quadratphotos [at] gmail.com

Please put the Monitoring Site and Date (day/month/year) in your subject heading, so it's easier for us to file.

As usual, the correct method of labeling your quadrat photo is: 

[Site Code][Site No.][Transect No.]_[Meter Mark]_[Date:dd/mm/yy]

So for example, the 25m mark at Pulau Semakau, Site 2, Transect 3 on 24th
Nov 2007 is labeled like so:

PS2T3_25m_241107.jpg

As far as possible, try to keep file sizes to around 2MB max at a resolution of between 200-300dpi so we can zoom in to look at the grasses when needed. You can keep the photo uncropped so we can zoom in to check the meter mark on the transect tape if need be.

This is also a timely reminder to SUBMIT your photos if you haven't already. We are accepting backlog photos from since the beginning of TeamSeagrass monitoring as long as you label with the the monitoring date. All late submissions welcome and culprits will be forgiven(ish). :) 

Chek Jawa (21 September 2013)

TeamSeagrass was out and about at Chek Jawa for the first of our evening tides this year! It's been awhile since I blogged for any of our trips, so bear with me if this isn't the usual style of reporting.

The afternoon started off well enough, we got everyone to CJ in time for the outgoing low tide. We distributed the equipment and people into various groups and then realised that I had forgotten the pencils. Spectacular start to the day indeed. Fortunately for me, seagrassers are prepared a resourceful people, so out came the pens and pencils out of nooks and crevices hitherto long-forgotten. 

Cyrene Reef (10 August 2013)

TeamSeagrass celebrates another National Day on Cyrene Reef!

TeamSeagrass <3 Singapore!

And what a lovely, sunny day it was!

Pulau Semakau (28 July 2013)

Hello everyone! Team Seagrass is back again since the last training session on Chek Jawa last June... This time, we headed out to Pulau Semakau. Thank you to Johnson Ong, who made the effort to take all the photographs below.

Today's team consists of the old guard and new members! It's heartening to see that Team Seagrass is attracting more youths to participate in the monitoring and to explore our amazing shores. Here's a photo showing Siti giving a pre-trip briefing to find out everyone's previous monitoring experience.

"Good morning Team Seagrass", says Siti