Besides filtering out sediment, seagrasses provide a natural hunting ground for game fish and the anglers who pursue them. They function as food sources for fish, waterfowl and sea turtles, nurseries and sanctuaries for juvenile finfish, crabs and shrimp and generally serve as biological indicators of water quality on Texas bays and estuaries. From Matagorda Bay southward along the Texas coast, seagrasses are the dominant structural vegetation. Almost 80 percent of the seagrasses are located in the Laguna Madre, an estuary that begins just south of Corpus Christi Bay and runs southward 140 miles to South Padre Island. Most of the remaining seagrasses, about 45,000 acres, are located in the heavily traveled San Antonio, Aransas and Corpus Christi Bay areas.
Seagrasses fill many roles and provide many benefits in the marine environment.
By their very nature, they provide structure on a bay bottom and, by providing that structure, they slow and retard water movement. As a result, the water around seagrass beds is always a lot clearer. The water transparency is always higher and people like that because fish are mainly visual predators and part of the joy of fishing is being able to see what you are fishing for or watch a fish chase your lure, chase your bait. Seagrasses also trap and conserve nutrients that are essential to other marine organisms, Dunton says. They internalize nutrient cycling.