Inundation and salinity impacts to above- and belowground productivity in Spartina patens and Spartina alterniflora in the Mississippi River deltaic plain: Implications for using river diversions as restoration tools

Snedden, Gregg A.; Cretini, Kari F.; Patton, Brett A.

doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2015.04.035

Cited by 137 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Various inundation−productivity relationships have been reported for tidal marsh plants, including parabolic responses (Kirwan & Guntenspergen 2012, Schile et al 2014, Watson et al 2015, linearly declining monotonic relationships (Voss et al 2013), or exponentially declining relationships (Watson et al 2014, Snedden et al 2015. However, research to date has mainly focused on common marsh species found along the Atlantic coast of North America (but see Schile et al 2014 for multi-species biomass data in California, USA).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential effects of sea-level rise on plant productivity: species-specific responses in northeast Pacific tidal marshes

Janousek

Buffington

Thorne

et al. 2016

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Coastal wetland plants are adapted to varying degrees of inundation. However, functional relationships between inundation and productivity are poorly characterized for most species. Determining species-specific tolerances to inundation is necessary to evaluate sea-level rise (SLR) effects on future marsh plant community composition, quantify organic matter inputs to marsh accretion, and inform predictive modeling of tidal wetland persistence. In 2 macrotidal estuaries in the northeast Pacific we grew 5 common species in experimental mesocosms across a gradient of tidal elevations to assess effects on growth. We also tested whether species abundance distributions along elevation gradients in adjacent marshes matched productivity profiles in the mesocosms. We found parabolic relationships between inundation and total plant biomass and shoot counts in Spartina foliosa and Bolboschoenus maritimus in California, USA, and in Carex lyngbyei in Oregon, USA, with maximum total plant biomass occurring at 38, 28, and 15% time submerged, respectively. However, biomass of Salicornia pacifica and Juncus balticus declined monotonically with increasing inundation. Inundation effects on the ratio of belowground to aboveground biomass varied inconsistently among species. In comparisons of field distributions with mesocosm results, B. maritimus, C. lyngbyei and J. balticus were abundant in marshes at or above elevations corresponding with their maximum productivity; however, S. foliosa and S. pacifica were frequently abundant at lower elevations corresponding with sub-optimal productivity. Our findings show species-level differences in how marsh plant growth may respond to future SLR and highlight the sensitivity of high marsh species such as S. pacifica and J. balticus to increases in flooding.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential effects of sea-level rise on plant productivity: species-specific responses in northeast Pacific tidal marshes

Janousek

Buffington

Thorne

et al. 2016

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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“…This preexisting vegetation could die due to lack of time for adaptation to the new conditions or an increase in water levels which would then induce further wetland loss [50,51]. Likewise, fish and wildlife species can suffer from an initial shock of changing conditions.…”

Section: Habitats and Fish And Wildlife Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There tends to be a lot of inertia in plant community dynamics and the dynamics of vegetation shifts are more complex [62]. There are examples in coastal Louisiana of vegetation being very responsive to fresh water inputs (Naomi Siphon) and others where vegetation has been very stagnant (Caernarvon Freshwater Diversion) [50]. Freshwater vegetation may establish in the outfall area over time, however maintaining as much intermediate and brackish marsh as possible will reduce the risk of episodic loss of freshwater vegetation that can occur from salinity spikes during droughts or tropical storm surge, and build wetlands that have resilience to rising sea levels and the subsequent increase in daily salinities [63].…”

Section: Habitats and Fish And Wildlife Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The diversion will be flowing into already fragmented and degraded marshes where vegetation is already flood stressed [49,50]. This preexisting vegetation could die due to lack of time for adaptation to the new conditions or an increase in water levels which would then induce further wetland loss [50,51].…”

Section: Habitats and Fish And Wildlife Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increased duration of flooding has been demonstrated to cause a decline in both aboveground and belowground biomass [50,51]. Sensitivity to flooding varies by species with freshwater species being generally the most tolerant [51].…”

Section: Habitatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optimizing Sediment Diversion Operations: Working Group Recommendations for Integrating Complex Ecological and Social Landscape Interactions

Peyronnin

Caffey

Cowan

et al. 2017

Water

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Future conditions of coastal Louisiana are highly uncertain due to the dynamic nature of deltas, climate change, tropical storms, and human reliance on natural resources and ecosystem services. Managing a system in which natural and socio-economic components are highly integrated is inherently difficult. Sediment diversions are a unique restoration tool that would reconnect the Mississippi River to its deltaic plain to build and sustain land. Diversions are innately adaptable as operations can be modified over time. An expert working group was formed to explore how various operational strategies may affect the complex interactions of coastal Louisiana's ecological and social landscape and provide preliminary recommendations for further consideration and research. For example, initial operations should be gradually increased over 5 to 10 years to facilitate the development of a distributary channel network, reduce flood risk potential to communities, limit erosion of adjacent marshes and reduce stress to vegetation and fish and wildlife species. Diversions should operate over winter peaks to capture the highest sediment concentration, reduce vegetation loss while dormant, and reduce detrimental effects to fish and wildlife. Operations during the spring/summer should occur over shorter periods to capture the highest sediment load during the rising limb of the flood peak and minimize impacts to the ecosystem. Operational strategies should strive to build and sustain as much of the coastal landscape as possible while also balancing the ecosystem and community needs.

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Component greenhouse gas fluxes and radiative balance from two deltaic marshes in Louisiana: Pairing chamber techniques and eddy covariance

Krauss

Holm²,

Perez³

et al. 2016

JGR Biogeosciences

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Neubauer, Scott C.; and Raynie, Richard C., "Component greenhouse gas fluxes and radiative balance from two deltaic marshes in Louisiana: Pairing chamber techniques and eddy covariance" (2016 Abstract Coastal marshes take up atmospheric CO 2 while emitting CO 2 , CH 4 , and N 2 O. This ability to sequester carbon (C) is much greater for wetlands on a per area basis than from most ecosystems, facilitating scientific, political, and economic interest in their value as greenhouse gas sinks. However, the greenhouse gas balance of Gulf of Mexico wetlands is particularly understudied. We describe the net ecosystem exchange (NEE c ) of CO 2 and CH 4 using eddy covariance (EC) in comparison with fluxes of CO 2 , CH 4 , and N 2 O using chambers from brackish and freshwater marshes in Louisiana, USA. From EC, we found that 182 g C m À2 yr À1 was lost through NEE c from the brackish marsh. Of this, 11 g C m À2 yr À1 resulted from net CH 4 emissions and the remaining 171 g C m À2 yr À1 resulted from net CO 2 emissions. In contrast, À290 g C m 2 yr À1 was taken up through NEE c by the freshwater marsh, with 47 g C m À2 yr À1 emitted as CH 4 and À337 g C m À2 yr À1 taken up as CO 2 . From chambers, we discovered that neither site had large fluxes of N 2 O. Sustained-flux greenhouse gas accounting metrics indicated that both marshes had a positive (warming) radiative balance, with the brackish marsh having a substantially greater warming effect than the freshwater marsh. That net respiratory emissions of CO 2 and CH 4 as estimated through chamber techniques were 2-4 times different from emissions estimated through EC requires additional understanding of the artifacts created by different spatial and temporal sampling footprints between techniques.

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Inundation and salinity impacts to above- and belowground productivity in Spartina patens and Spartina alterniflora in the Mississippi River deltaic plain: Implications for using river diversions as restoration tools

Cited by 137 publications

References 48 publications

Potential effects of sea-level rise on plant productivity: species-specific responses in northeast Pacific tidal marshes

Potential effects of sea-level rise on plant productivity: species-specific responses in northeast Pacific tidal marshes

Optimizing Sediment Diversion Operations: Working Group Recommendations for Integrating Complex Ecological and Social Landscape Interactions

Component greenhouse gas fluxes and radiative balance from two deltaic marshes in Louisiana: Pairing chamber techniques and eddy covariance

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