Community engagement is a huge part of our project and we are working on creating multiple avenues for the public to engage with eelgrass research. One incredible way to get involved is to participate in our iNaturalist project where you can collect photos and data and submit it all directly to CERI! The more eyes we have out in the world looking for eelgrass, the more successful our project will be.

What is iNaturalist?

iNaturalist is a “crowdsourced species identification system and an organism occurrence recording tool” (iNaturalist, 2022). Once you create an account you can contribute observations to a variety of projects in your area, or just curate your own personal observations!  iNaturalist is an extremely versatile tool for both scientists and non-scientists alike to participate in citizen science, and allows for the sharing of free and accessible data.

Our iNaturalist page is a collaborative effort with the Ecology Action Center (EAC), a member-based environmental charity located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The EAC has been successfully conducting kayak surveys on their iNaturalist page since 2019 and have gathered invaluable data on the location and density of local eelgrass populations. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we were offered the chance to partner on their page and work with their observations! We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity and all of our future collaborative efforts.

If you want to contribute to a growing global database, please consider joining iNaturalist and following the CERI project! Since eelgrass grows close to the shore, it is easy to spot while participating in your coastline activities (hiking, kayaking, canoeing boating, etc)

Join our iNaturalist Project and contribute to the conservation of eelgrass in Nova Scotia here

Create an account here here

See global record of Eelgrass (Zostera marina) here