The Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) is an extremely dynamic, heterogeneous coastal barrier landscape comprising mainland watersheds, tidal marshes, lagoons, and barrier islands. Our goal for the VCR LTER program is to develop a predictive understanding of the response of coastal barrier systems to long-term environmental changes in climate, sea level and land use, and to relate these to the ecological services the coastal barrier systems provide.

Accurate habitat mapping in salt marshes is important for both management and conservation goals, as it provides information essential for identifying sensitive areas and documenting changes over time as the result of sea level rise or human perturbations. The goal of this study is to characterize patterns of marsh plant distribution in the salt marshes surrounding back barrier islands (hammocks) within the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER. In the summer of 2007 the GCE LTER surveyed over 50 hammocks of different origin and size.

A field experiment has been initiated in August 2008 to determine if the vegetation of a coastal marsh is in synchrony with hydrologic conditions that have developed with rising sea-level. The hypothesis being tested is that plant community structure will persist in existing zones of vegetation in the face of sea-level rise unless disturbance provides opportunities for species change under more frequent tidal inundation.

This session is intended both for social and biophysical scientists who want to help develop a proposal for the kind of “multi-site, highly collaborative and integrated research initiative” envisioned by the LTER planning group. The focus will be on what the LTER planning process calls the “centerpiece” of the group's conceptual framework, as well as one of “Grand Challenges” to be addressed at the network level – “the dynamics of coupled human-natural ecosystems.”

This study was conducted in Taylor River in the southern mangrove ecotone region of Taylor Slough in the Florida Everglades between two FCE-LTER water quality observation stations. This system is characterized by a series of interconnected creeks and ponds that make up the larger Taylor River. During wet season months from June to November, there is a distinct freshwater input to the mangrove estuary from the north, which essentially “flushes” most of the river and lowers salinity to less than 1 ppt.

A pandemic wasting disease coupled with a destructive hurricane in the1930s, caused the local extinction of eelgrass (Zostera marina) in the Virginia coastal bays. Small patches of naturally-recruited seagrass were noticed in the late 1990s, prompting a large-scale restoration effort using seeds from nearby Chesapeake Bay. Restored meadows are currently thriving and expanding; however, there is a concern about the genetic structure of these meadows.