Professor Carlos Duarte gives TED Talk on seagrass

Once considered the ugly duckling of environmental conservation, seagrass is emerging as a powerful tool for climate action. From drawing down carbon to filtering plastic pollution, marine scientist Carlos M. Duarte details the incredible things this oceanic hero does for our planet -- and shows ingenious ways he and his team are protecting and rebuilding marine life.

Distinguished Professor Carlos Duarte gave a TED talk on the topic "The unexpected underwater plant fighting climate change".  He is a world-wide leader in multiple branches of biological oceanography and marine ecology and has established himself very early in his career as the world-wide leading authority on the ecology of seagrass meadows. He published on all aspects of seagrass ecology, from population biology to genetics, from depth and geographical distribution patterns to their role in biogeochemical cycles, and from conservation strategies to their sensitivity towards climate change.

The seagrass under the microscope in his TED Talk, and the subject of Duarte and his team’s genome studies for the past seven years, is Zostera marina. Thanks to their work, this is the first marine angiosperm or flowering plant, to our knowledge, to be fully sequenced.

The TED talk by Distinguished Professor Carlos Duarte (Monterey, CA, official TED event, July 2021). 

Watch here