The Simons Foundation has awarded $8.4 million to support collaborative research in coastal tidal marshes via a cluster of seven linked project awards through its Life Sciences division.
The project, “Ecosystem on the Edge: How Coastal Marsh Plants and Microbes Thrive in an Oscillating Environment,” is led by Dr. Zoe Cardon at the Marine Biological Laboratory in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Bowen at Northeastern University, Dr. Inke Forbrich at The University of Toledo, Dr. Anne Giblin at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Dr. Charles Harvey at MIT, Dr. Marco Keiluweit at University of Lausanne and Dr. Amanda Spivak at University of Georgia.
The Simons Foundation has awarded $8.4 million to support collaborative research in coastal tidal marshes via a cluster of seven linked project awards through its Life Sciences division.
Oscillations are the rule in coastal marsh. Tides sweep back and forth through marsh soils, and the green marsh plants pull water from the soil on a daily basis. But how this constantly pulsing environment shapes and even dictates rhythmic interactions among plant roots, microbes and soil-water chemistry is the question. This question is important, because these interactions drive coastal marsh ecosystem functions on which humanity increasingly depends.
“It’s very unusual and exciting to be able to combine such a diverse set of scientists into one big interdisciplinary project focused on the function of these important ecosystems,” Cardon said. “Coastal marshes have the capacity to be our powerful allies as global change intensifies.”
This environmental allyship takes many forms. Marsh plants are extraordinarily productive and carbon in marsh soils can be stored for thousands of years. Marshes are hotspots of greenhouse gas consumption and production, biogeochemical powerhouses cleansing water and recycling nutrients, critical nurseries for fish and shellfish, and physical buffers conferring coastal protection from increasingly energetic storms. But these ecosystem services are threatened by sea level rise, climate change and the increasing impact of humanity’s coastal footprint, making the planned research even more timely.
UToledo’s Forbrich is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences.
“I will be measuring marsh-atmosphere water and carbon fluxes to better understand how marsh plants influence marsh hydrology and subsurface processes,” she said. “It’s exciting to integrate different ecosystem components to better understand and predict whole system behavior.”
The project will be located at the Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (PIE-LTER) site north of Boston, the largest remaining tidal wetland complex in the northeastern United States. It will continue for four years.
“I’m very excited about this project,” said Giblin, who is lead principal investigator at the PIE-LTER. “It will give me a chance to look in detail on the controls and impacts of iron and sulfur cycling with a team that can really help us understand mechanisms.”
