Saving Seagrass... With Pee?

Throughout the world’s oceans, massive meadows of seagrass sway in shallow waters. But threats from pollution and climate change are causing this flowering plant to decline. People have tried replanting seagrass beds, but they often struggle to survive. Now scientists at the University of Florida may have found a way to give growing seagrass a boost: human pee!

In some treatment processes, urine in wastewater can form a mineral called struvite. Struvite contains two key nutrients for plant growth: phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N).

The team set up three sets of seagrass plots. They added struvite to one and synthetic—or manufactured—fertilizer to another. The last set of plots served as a control for the others to be compared against. After two months, the plots fertilized with struvite had about five times as many seagrass shoots as the other two treatments.