Kudos to research professor Fred Short, who, along with several collaborators, was honored earlier this month with the prestigious Coastal America Partnership Award, the only environmental award of its kind given by the U.S. president.

Short, whose research specialty is seagrass, received the award for his contributions to a project that restored eelgrass to coastal salt ponds in Rhode Island. Most of us know eelgrass as that somewhat icky stuff that tickles our legs as we swim, but it plays an important role in estuarine environments. Short likens eelgrass and other seagrasses to a forest on the ocean floor, serving as protective nurseries, habitats, sediment-stabilizers, and water filters.

Short shared this award for work on the South Coast Habitat Restoration Project, which restored eelgrass meadows to tidal ponds at the Ninigret Park and National Wildlife Center in Charlestown, R.I. (read about it here: http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2009/june/bp17short.cfm). And although Short calls UNH’s Jackson Estuarine Lab on Great Bay his research home, Rhode Island’s coastal ponds were not completely foreign to him. “I first started work in these coastal ponds for my master’s degree at the University of Rhode Island back in the ‘70s,” he says.

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