On the coast of Northeast China is a place that looks like  something out of a movie: a marsh carpeted in stunning,  blood-red vegetation.

This is China’s famous Red Beach, a tourist destination that attracts more than two million visitors every year. The amazing color comes from  ruby-hued plants called Suaeda salsa— and it isn’t just their color that’s impressive.

This plant has superpowers that could  benefit wetlands around the world. [intro] Suaeda salsa is part of a genus  of plants called the seepweeds. It also doesn’t have a common name  in English that we could find, so we’re going to call it the salsa plant for fun. It’s red and green, it checks out.

There are over 100 different  seepweed species around the world, and they’re usually found in  salty or alkaline wetlands. The salsa plant in particular is native to  eastern and central Europe and southern Siberia as well as China—but it doesn’t have  the same incredible color everywhere. Plants that grow above the high tide, where conditions are dryer,  are tall, fluffy, and green.

Lower down, in wetter, saltier,  habitat, they’re shorter, with fleshy red-violet leaves. Scientists who’ve looked into this have found  that plants in the two different environments react to their surroundings by ramping the expression of  certain proteins up or down as a response to the stress caused  by excess salt and waterlogging. One result is that the plants in the wetter,   saltier habitat accumulate more  red pigments in their leaves, which is what gives them their fabulous color.

And at the Red Beach, freshwater,  saltwater, nutrient-rich sediment delivered by the Liao River, and climate have come together in a unique way to support a vibrant  carpet of these scarlet plants. But the salsa plant is interesting  for way more than just its color. For one thing, it’s edible— although the green kind is apparently  way tastier than the famous red kind.

The leaves are typically a “famine  food,” only eaten as a last resort, but its seeds are full of healthy oils, and scientists think it has untapped  potential as a food plant in areas where other crops are tough to grow. It’s also the focus of intense study as  a tool for restoring degraded wetlands, especially in China. Our salsa plant is a pioneer species, meaning it’s one of the first plants  to colonize a newly created habitat— or to recolonize habitat that’s been disturbed.

It can quickly establish itself  in harsh, salty coastal marshes due to its high salt tolerance— and as it grows, it can actually remove  harmful levels of salts from the soil. This is an extra-big deal because  sea level rise due to climate change means that coastal wetlands around  the world are getting saltier. Molecular biologists are even studying the genes  that make the salsa plant so salt-tolerant, hoping to someday use them to  make other species more resilient.

And the salsa plant’s ability  to thrive in tough conditions doesn’t stop with salt. It can also tolerate the presence of  toxic heavy metals like copper and lead, and remove those from the soil as well.   The list of good stuff that this  wonder plant can do goes on and on. It sequesters carbon, locking  it away out of the atmosphere… it improves the diversity and function  of the soil microbe community… Basically, the salsa plant can take a  barren, salty, polluted coastal habitat and begin its transformation into  a thriving wetland ecosystem.

And folks in China are doing this: Multiple restoration projects have  successfully established the salsa plant in areas contaminated by oil spills  or disturbed by human activity. At first, all you would see in a restoration  area is barren sediment and sand, interspersed with tiny red plants. The plants grow slowly at first,  especially in contaminated soil, and they take a few years to really get going.

But over time, they boost the health  of the environment they’re in. And as the salsa plants grow,  filling in those bare areas, birds and other wildlife begin to return as well, until the site is filled with the  sights and sounds of a thriving wetland. But here’s the twist: Red Beach itself, the salsa plant’s most famous  stronghold, is under threat.

But before we get into all that , let’s take a quick break. Thanks to our Presidents of Science f or making this SciShow video possible! These incredible patrons help us keep  the stuff you’re watching right now totally free so that anyone can learn from them, because education is a human right.

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But our biggest ask of you is  to just keep watching SciShow. Red Beach is part of a  state-protected nature preserve. It even includes a wooden jetty so that  tourists can take in the spectacular color without trampling the plants.

It’s home to hundreds of  wildlife species, including rare, vulnerable birds like the red-crowned crane,  white-naped crane, and black-faced spoonbill. But the Liao River Delta,  where Red Beach is located, is threatened by development for  rice paddies and aquaculture. It’s also the location of one of  the largest oilfields in China.

All of this is affecting the salsa  plant’s ability to flourish in the region. Studies have found that Suaeda salsa is  only growing in a small fraction of the area that could theoretically support it, in part because of the conversion of  wetland habitat for things like fish farms. It hasn’t always been this way, but as development has advanced, the area inhabited by Suaeda salsa has  declined by 63% in the last thirty years It may be vulnerable to climate change, too.

After an exceptionally hot, dry summer  in 2018 hit the Liao River Delta region, the plants’ aboveground  biomass—their leaves and stems— appeared to recover quickly,  but their root systems did not. Instead, their roots continued  to shrink for at least two years, suggesting that these plants may  have a hard time fully bouncing back as extreme weather events become more frequent. So the future is uncertain.

Turns out even a super-plant isn’t  immune to all of the ways humans can mess up the natural world. And while the salsa plant may have the power  to save and restore coastal wetland habitat across wide swaths of Eurasia and beyond, we may need to save it first. [ outro ]