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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2021
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7822311 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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