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Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh

In mid-winter 2018, an unprecedented sediment deposition event occurred throughout portions of the Great Marsh in Massachusetts. Evaluation of this event in distinct marsh areas spanning three towns (Essex, Ipswich, and Newbury) revealed deposition covering 29.2 hectares with an average thickness of...

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Autores principales: Moore, G. E., Burdick, D. M., Routhier, M. R., Novak, A. B., Payne, A. R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7822311/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33481899
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245564
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author Moore, G. E.
Burdick, D. M.
Routhier, M. R.
Novak, A. B.
Payne, A. R.
author_facet Moore, G. E.
Burdick, D. M.
Routhier, M. R.
Novak, A. B.
Payne, A. R.
author_sort Moore, G. E.
collection PubMed
description In mid-winter 2018, an unprecedented sediment deposition event occurred throughout portions of the Great Marsh in Massachusetts. Evaluation of this event in distinct marsh areas spanning three towns (Essex, Ipswich, and Newbury) revealed deposition covering 29.2 hectares with an average thickness of 30.1±2.1 mm measured shortly after deposition. While sediment deposition helps marshes survive sea level rise by building elevation, effects of such a large-scale deposition on New England marshes are unknown. This natural event provided an opportunity to study effects of large-scale sediment addition on plant cover and soil chemistry, with implications for marsh resilience. Sediment thickness did not differ significantly between winter and summer, indicating sediment is not eroding or compacting. The deposited sediment at each site had similar characteristics to that of the adjacent mudflat (e.g., texture, bivalve shells), suggesting that deposited materials resulted from ice rafting from adjacent flats, a natural phenomenon noted by other authors. Vegetative cover was significantly lower in plots with rafted sediment (75.6±2.3%) than sediment-free controls (93.1±1.6%) after one growing season. When sorted by sediment thickness categories, the low thickness level (1–19 mm) had significantly greater percent cover than medium (20–39 mm) and high (40–90 mm) categories. Given that sediment accretion in the Great Marsh was found to average 2.7 mm per year, the sediment thickness documented herein represents ~11 years of sediment accretion with only a 25% reduction in plant cover, suggesting this natural sediment event will likely increase long-term marsh resilience to sea level rise.
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spelling pubmed-78223112021-01-29 Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh Moore, G. E. Burdick, D. M. Routhier, M. R. Novak, A. B. Payne, A. R. PLoS One Research Article In mid-winter 2018, an unprecedented sediment deposition event occurred throughout portions of the Great Marsh in Massachusetts. Evaluation of this event in distinct marsh areas spanning three towns (Essex, Ipswich, and Newbury) revealed deposition covering 29.2 hectares with an average thickness of 30.1±2.1 mm measured shortly after deposition. While sediment deposition helps marshes survive sea level rise by building elevation, effects of such a large-scale deposition on New England marshes are unknown. This natural event provided an opportunity to study effects of large-scale sediment addition on plant cover and soil chemistry, with implications for marsh resilience. Sediment thickness did not differ significantly between winter and summer, indicating sediment is not eroding or compacting. The deposited sediment at each site had similar characteristics to that of the adjacent mudflat (e.g., texture, bivalve shells), suggesting that deposited materials resulted from ice rafting from adjacent flats, a natural phenomenon noted by other authors. Vegetative cover was significantly lower in plots with rafted sediment (75.6±2.3%) than sediment-free controls (93.1±1.6%) after one growing season. When sorted by sediment thickness categories, the low thickness level (1–19 mm) had significantly greater percent cover than medium (20–39 mm) and high (40–90 mm) categories. Given that sediment accretion in the Great Marsh was found to average 2.7 mm per year, the sediment thickness documented herein represents ~11 years of sediment accretion with only a 25% reduction in plant cover, suggesting this natural sediment event will likely increase long-term marsh resilience to sea level rise. Public Library of Science 2021-01-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7822311/ /pubmed/33481899 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245564 Text en © 2021 Moore 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
Moore, G. E.
Burdick, D. M.
Routhier, M. R.
Novak, A. B.
Payne, A. R.
Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh
title Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh
title_full Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh
title_fullStr Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh
title_full_unstemmed Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh
title_short Effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a Massachusetts salt marsh
title_sort effects of a large-scale, natural sediment deposition event on plant cover in a massachusetts salt marsh
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7822311/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33481899
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245564
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