Dr. Alexandra Gulizia (left) and Patsakorn Jeenchuay (right) test prototype biodegradable seagrass seed pods ahead of a full field trial in Satun Province. 

A collaboration between Walailak University (WU)’s Center of Excellence for Ecoinformatics and Murdoch University (MU)'s Bioplastics Innovation Hub is testing whether a 3D-printed, biodegradable seagrass seed pod can succeed where past seagrass restoration efforts have failed — with fishing communities in Satun Province standing to benefit most.

It looks a little like an ice cream cone: a small dome with a pointed base, a scatter of slots running down its sides, and an internal core that opens to receive a single shoot of seagrass. Press the pointed end into the seabed, and the roots are meant to grow outward through the slots while the dome shields the young plant from crabs, fish, and turtles until it can fend for itself. Eventually, the whole pod dissolves — no plastic left behind, nothing to dig back out.

It is, for now, still a prototype — 3D-printed from a digital blueprint, with at least one design flaw already identified and slated for a fix in the next version. But if it works, this object could help answer a question that has quietly stumped marine restoration projects across Thailand: why does transplanted seagrass so rarely survive?



That question sits at the center of a new collaboration between WU's Center of Excellence for Ecoinformatics and MU's Bioplastics Innovation Hub (BIH) in Western Australia. The work is backed by a research grant that the Center's director, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Krisanadej Jaroensutasinee, secured from Thailand's National Research Council (NRCT), and with support from BIH. Under Dr. Krisanadej’s supervision, two WU PhD students are leading the fieldwork: Patsakorn Jeenchuay, a scholar under the Development and Promotion of Science and Technology Talents Project (DPST), and Leoniel Jude Giray, who holds a WU PhD Excellence Scholarship. Both work alongside BIH polymer chemist Dr. Alexandra Gulizia and Professor Andrew Macrae, the Hub's deputy director. Their shared goal: coax seagrass meadows back onto the seabed around Koh Lidi, a pair of islands inside Mu Ko Phetra National Park — and, with them, the fish stocks that local fishing communities depend on.

The idea started with Patsakorn, known to colleagues as Kong. Digging through past seagrass restoration attempts in Thailand, he noticed a pattern: there was no shared guideline for planting density. "If the density isn't right, a wave or a layer of sediment can wipe out an entire planting in one go," he says. Cluster the pods more closely instead of scattering single shoots across open ground, and even if part of a cluster is buried or disturbed, the surrounding plants can help sustain it.

Professor Macrae, who spent more than two decades working on coastline restoration — mostly mangroves — before he moved from Brazil to Australia, says there is rarely just one reason restoration fails. "Sometimes the plants weren't healthy when they arrived. The other reason is that the environmental conditions, either the wave energy or the water energy, removed them. And sometimes it's fishing in the wrong place — not that fishing itself is the problem; it's fishing where the seagrass is. You need seagrass to have fish. If you remove the seagrass, there's no way for the small fish to grow."

For Patsakorn, the urgency is personal. He says the project is also motivated by Thailand's declining dugong population, which relies on seagrass as its primary food source. And the animal's decline matters on more than one level: it draws tourists and signals a healthy marine ecosystem. Seagrass, meanwhile, is both the dugong's main food source and a nursery ground for the shrimp, crab, and fish that sustain coastal fishing communities. "If there's more seagrass, there are more fish," he says. "That means more income for local fishermen."


The joint WU and MU research team at Koh Lidi. Pictured are Patsakorn (second from right), Giray (fourth from right), Dr. Gulizia (fifth from right), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mullica Jaroensutasinee (third from left), and Samantha Viljoen (fourth from left).


 
Left: The WU and MU research team surveys the waters around Koh Lidi. Right: Patsakorn uses a depth sounder to measure the water depth. 

While Patsakorn works out the ecology, Dr. Gulizia is responsible for the material itself. The pods are made from polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA — a bioplastic produced from bacteria. "We make the bioplastic from bacterial fermentation," she explains. "It's not a single species — it's a group of bacteria we can find in a lot of places, but the ones we're using were isolated locally, around Murdoch." Her job, as she describes it, is to functionalize the polymer for the task at hand: "Here we want a seed pod that's strong and biodegradable, and I make the polymer, the PHA, with those properties."

If Patsakorn and Dr. Gulizia are focused on the plant, Giray is focused on the people. His research asks a different question: what do the fishing communities around Koh Lidi actually need? "It's like hitting two birds with one stone," he says. "Kong's side is about restoring the meadows themselves. Mine is about understanding their socioeconomic status. How many people do they feed in their family? How much do they spend every day to travel into the seas to catch some fish?"

That means fieldwork: a questionnaire for local fishermen, to be tested before it's used more widely, and workshops planned to share what the research finds. "If we get to instill in them the values of having good seagrass meadows, then the problems in terms of the population of the fish that they could catch every year will eventually stabilize or might probably increase," Giray explains, noting that seagrass serves as a crucial nursery for marine life.

The trip that brought the team to Koh Lidi this time is not yet about planting. It is a scouting mission: surveying the site, selecting which seagrass species is likely to take, and, for Giray, beginning to build relationships with the community through introductions from the national park office. The pods themselves are still working through safety and packaging testing before any go into the water for real. Patsakorn estimates the project is seven or eight months in; the actual planting trial, as specified in the team's proposal to NRCT, will take place at Koh Lidi once that testing is complete.

For Professor Macrae, the collaboration is also about visibility. It matters, he says, that people beyond the university know the Ecoinformatics team is "prepared to work in international partnerships" — "together, we are stronger." The Hub itself, he explains, is a joint venture between Murdoch University and Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, backed by a combined investment of around $8 million. Most of its technologies are patented and licensed to fund further research, but this one is being shared for free. "If you make it expensive, nobody is going to do it," he says. "If it's free, there's a chance." He is candid, too, about the prototype's current shortcomings: "This is a prototype — it will change. Right now, the bottom of the cone is closed, which isn't ideal. The next version will be different."


The research team conducts a percent-cover estimation of the seagrass meadow. 


The research team met with Mr. Weerasak Srisajjang, Head of Mu Ko Phetra National Park, on July 18, 2026, to discuss the collaborative seagrass restoration project. Dr. Krisanadej is pictured in the front right. 

Photos courtesy of the WU and MU research team
Written by Settaboot Onphakdee, Division of Corporate Communications