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Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh

The implementation and monitoring of management strategies is integral to protect coastal marshes from increased inundation and submergence under sea-level rise. Sediment addition is one such strategy in which sediment is added to marshes to raise relative elevations, decrease tidal inundation, and...

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Autores principales: McAtee, Kaelin J., Thorne, Karen M., Whitcraft, Christine R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7644084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33151998
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240597
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author McAtee, Kaelin J.
Thorne, Karen M.
Whitcraft, Christine R.
author_facet McAtee, Kaelin J.
Thorne, Karen M.
Whitcraft, Christine R.
author_sort McAtee, Kaelin J.
collection PubMed
description The implementation and monitoring of management strategies is integral to protect coastal marshes from increased inundation and submergence under sea-level rise. Sediment addition is one such strategy in which sediment is added to marshes to raise relative elevations, decrease tidal inundation, and enhance ecosystem processes. This study looked at the plant and invertebrate community responses over 12 months following a sediment addition project on a salt marsh located in an urbanized estuary in southern California, USA. This salt marsh is experiencing local subsidence, is sediment-limited from landscape modifications, has resident protected species, and is at-risk of submergence from sea-level rise. Abiotic measurements, invertebrate cores, and plant parameters were analyzed before and after sediment application in a before-after-control-impact (BACI) design. Immediately following the sediment application, plant cover and invertebrate abundance decreased significantly, with smothering of existing vegetation communities without regrowth, presumably creating resulting harsh abiotic conditions. At six months after the sediment application treatment, Salicornia bigelovii minimally colonized the sediment application area, and Spartina foliosa spread vegetatively from the edges of the marsh; however, at 12 months following sediment application overall plant recovery was still minimal. Community composition of infaunal invertebrates shifted from a dominance of marsh-associated groups like oligochaetes and polychaetes to more terrestrial and more mobile dispersers like insect larvae. In contrast to other studies, such as those with high organic deposition, that showed vegetation and invertebrate community recovery within one year of sediment application, our results indicated a much slower recovery following a sediment addition of 32 cm which resulted in a supratidal elevation with an average of 1.62 m (NAVD88) at our sampling locations. Our results indicate that the site did not recover after one year and that recovery may take longer which illustrates the importance of long-term monitoring to fully understand restoration trajectories and inform adaptive management. Testing and monitoring sea-level rise adaptation strategies like sediment addition for salt marshes is important to prevent the loss of important coastal ecosystems.
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spelling pubmed-76440842020-11-16 Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh McAtee, Kaelin J. Thorne, Karen M. Whitcraft, Christine R. PLoS One Research Article The implementation and monitoring of management strategies is integral to protect coastal marshes from increased inundation and submergence under sea-level rise. Sediment addition is one such strategy in which sediment is added to marshes to raise relative elevations, decrease tidal inundation, and enhance ecosystem processes. This study looked at the plant and invertebrate community responses over 12 months following a sediment addition project on a salt marsh located in an urbanized estuary in southern California, USA. This salt marsh is experiencing local subsidence, is sediment-limited from landscape modifications, has resident protected species, and is at-risk of submergence from sea-level rise. Abiotic measurements, invertebrate cores, and plant parameters were analyzed before and after sediment application in a before-after-control-impact (BACI) design. Immediately following the sediment application, plant cover and invertebrate abundance decreased significantly, with smothering of existing vegetation communities without regrowth, presumably creating resulting harsh abiotic conditions. At six months after the sediment application treatment, Salicornia bigelovii minimally colonized the sediment application area, and Spartina foliosa spread vegetatively from the edges of the marsh; however, at 12 months following sediment application overall plant recovery was still minimal. Community composition of infaunal invertebrates shifted from a dominance of marsh-associated groups like oligochaetes and polychaetes to more terrestrial and more mobile dispersers like insect larvae. In contrast to other studies, such as those with high organic deposition, that showed vegetation and invertebrate community recovery within one year of sediment application, our results indicated a much slower recovery following a sediment addition of 32 cm which resulted in a supratidal elevation with an average of 1.62 m (NAVD88) at our sampling locations. Our results indicate that the site did not recover after one year and that recovery may take longer which illustrates the importance of long-term monitoring to fully understand restoration trajectories and inform adaptive management. Testing and monitoring sea-level rise adaptation strategies like sediment addition for salt marshes is important to prevent the loss of important coastal ecosystems. Public Library of Science 2020-11-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7644084/ /pubmed/33151998 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240597 Text en © 2020 McAtee et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
McAtee, Kaelin J.
Thorne, Karen M.
Whitcraft, Christine R.
Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh
title Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh
title_full Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh
title_fullStr Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh
title_full_unstemmed Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh
title_short Short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern California salt marsh
title_sort short-term impact of sediment addition on plants and invertebrates in a southern california salt marsh
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7644084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33151998
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240597
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