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Much of America's coastline is threatened by overdevelopment and coastal erosion, driven by global sea‐level rise, a problem that is attracting the attention of researchers around the world. Although we have now acknowledged the impending risks, little is known about the response of spatially dependent dune plant communities to the loss or restriction of their habitat. In order to study this development, a spatially explicit model of sand dune plant succession on Galveston Island, Texas, was created, using sea‐level rise as the primary mechanism causing local erosion. Simulations of sea‐level rise scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrated that beach erosion constrained plants to a narrow area, resulting in a breakdown of the successional process. The loss of late‐succession plants along coastlines, their dependent faunal species, and possible solutions are discussed. This model and example serves as a harbinger of the future for many of the US's sandy beaches and coastal communities.

Much of America's coastline is threatened by overdevelopment and coastal erosion, driven by global sea‐level rise, a problem that is attracting the attention of researchers around the world. Although we have now acknowledged the impending risks, little is known about the response of spatially dependent dune plant communities to the loss or restriction of their habitat. In order to study this development, a spatially explicit model of sand dune plant succession on Galveston Island, Texas, was created, using sea‐level rise as the primary mechanism causing local erosion. Simulations of sea‐level rise scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrated that beach erosion constrained plants to a narrow area, resulting in a breakdown of the successional process. The loss of late‐succession plants along coastlines, their dependent faunal species, and possible solutions are discussed. This model and example serves as a harbinger of the future for many of the US's sandy beaches and coastal communities.

Tropical cyclones play an increasingly important role in shaping ecosystems. Understanding and generalizing their responses is challenging because of meteorological variability among storms and its interaction with ecosystems. We present a research framework designed to compare tropical cyclone effects within and across ecosystems that: a) uses a disaggregating approach that measures the responses of individual ecosystem components, b) links the response of ecosystem components at fine temporal scales to meteorology and antecedent conditions, and c) examines responses of ecosystem using a resistance–resilience perspective by quantifying the magnitude of change and recovery time. We demonstrate the utility of the framework using three examples of ecosystem response: gross primary productivity, stream biogeochemical export, and organismal abundances. Finally, we present the case for a network of sentinel sites with consistent monitoring to measure and compare ecosystem responses to cyclones across the United States, which could help improve coastal ecosystem resilience.

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