bandages and other purposes. In February 2017, researchers found that seagrass meadows may be able to remove various pathogens from seawater. On small islands without wastewater treatment facilities in central Indonesia, levels of pathogenic marine bacteria – such as Enterococcus – that affect humans, fish and invertebrates were reduced by 50 percent when seagrass meadows were present, compared to paired sites without seagrass, although this could be a detriment to their survival. Movement ecology Understanding the movement ecology of seagrasses provides a way to assess the capacity of populations to recover from impacts associated with existing and future pressures. These include the (re)-colonization of altered or fragmented landscapes, and movement associated with climate change. The marine environment acts as an abiotic dispersal vector and its physical properties significantly influence movement, presenting both challenges and opportunities that differ from terrestrial environments. Typical flow speeds in the ocean are around 0.1 m s−1, generally one to two orders of magnitude weaker than typical atmospheric flows (1–10 m s−1), that can limit dispersal. However, as seawater density is approximately 1000 times greater than air, momentum of a moving mass of water at the same speed is three orders of magnitude greater than in air. Therefore, drag forces acting on individuals (proportional to density) are also three orders of magnitude higher, enabling relatively larger-sized propagules to be mobilized. But most importantly, buoyancy forces (proportional to the density difference between seawater and the propagule) significantly reduce the effective weight of submerged propagules. Within seagrasses, propagules can weakly settle (negatively buoyant), remain effectively suspended in the interior of the water column (neutrally buoyant), or float at the surface (positively buoyant). With positive buoyancy (e.g. floating fruit), ocean surface currents freely move propagules, and dispersal distances are only limited by the viability time of the fruit, leading to exceptionally long single dispersal events (more than 100 km), which is rare for passive abiotic movement of terrestrial fruit and seeds. There are a variety of biotic dispersal vectors for seagrasses, as they feed on or live in seagrass habitat. These include dugongs, manatees, turtles, waterfowl, fish and invertebrates. Each biotic vector has its own internal state, motion capacity, navigation capacity and external factors influencing its movement. These interact with plant movement ecology to determine the ultimate movement path of the plant. For example, if a waterbird feeds on a seagrass containing fruit with seeds that are viable after