Researchers worry that another year of record-breaking heat could turn large expanses of the southern Chesapeake Bay into desert-like zones devoid of plants. The record heat last summer just cooked the eelgrass. Eelgrass is the dominant aquatic plant in the salty southern bay closest to the Atlantic Ocean, and it’s the only underwater plant that lives year-round in the bay. An aerial survey this spring showed a widespread loss of eelgrass.

“If we have another hot summer like last summer, the change in the Chesapeake Bay could be catastrophic,” said Robert J. Orth, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

[Read](http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/outdoors/bal-te.md.eelgrass13may13,0,4048640.story?track=rss) (Baltimore Sun)