Stress gradients interact with disturbance to reveal alternative states in salt marsh: Multivariate resilience at the landscape scale

Jones, Scott F.; Stagg, Camille L.; Yando, Erik S.; James, William R.; Buffington, Kevin J.; Hester, Mark W.

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13552

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…Hidden players (sensu Thompson et al, 2001) [ 59 ], such as microbial or fungal pathogens, can contribute to underlying stress that can erode the resilience of an ecosystem, effectively lowering the tolerance threshold and rendering it vulnerable to an acute disturbance, like extreme drought or flooding [ 60 , 61 ]. In the current study, it is likely that the areas of S. alterniflora dieback were weakened by an underlying stressor, making them more sensitive to extreme precipitation and flooding associated with Hurricane Harvey.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme Precipitation and Flooding Contribute to Sudden Vegetation Dieback in a Coastal Salt Marsh

Stagg

Osland

Moon

et al. 2021

Plants

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Climate extremes are becoming more frequent with global climate change and have the potential to cause major ecological regime shifts. Along the northern Gulf of Mexico, a coastal wetland in Texas suffered sudden vegetation dieback following an extreme precipitation and flooding event associated with Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Historical salt marsh dieback events have been linked to climate extremes, such as extreme drought. However, to our knowledge, this is the first example of extreme precipitation and flooding leading to mass mortality of the salt marsh foundation species, Spartina alterniflora. Here, we investigated the relationships between baseline climate conditions, extreme climate conditions, and large-scale plant mortality to provide an indicator of ecosystem vulnerability to extreme precipitation events. We identified plant zonal boundaries along an elevation gradient with plant species tolerant of hypersaline conditions, including succulents and graminoids, at higher elevations, and flood-tolerant species, including S. alterniflora, at lower elevations. We quantified a flooding threshold for wetland collapse under baseline conditions characterized by incremental increases in flooding (i.e., sea level rise). We proposed that the sudden widespread dieback of S. alterniflora following Hurricane Harvey was the result of extreme precipitation and flooding that exceeded this threshold for S. alterniflora survival. Indeed, S. alterniflora dieback occurred at elevations above the wetland collapse threshold, illustrating a heightened vulnerability to flooding that could not be predicted from baseline climate conditions. Moreover, the spatial pattern of vegetation dieback indicated that underlying stressors may have also increased susceptibility to dieback in some S. alterniflora marshes.Collectively, our results highlight a new mechanism of sudden vegetation dieback in S. alterniflora marshes that is triggered by extreme precipitation and flooding. Furthermore, this work emphasizes the importance of considering interactions between multiple abiotic and biotic stressors that can lead to shifts in tolerance thresholds and incorporating climate extremes into climate vulnerability assessments to accurately characterize future climate threats.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme Precipitation and Flooding Contribute to Sudden Vegetation Dieback in a Coastal Salt Marsh

Stagg

Osland

Moon

et al. 2021

Plants

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“…Likewise, Jones et al. (2020) show that both the resistance and recovery of plant communities to pulse disturbances (i.e. sudden events) are similarly affected by flooding stress gradients in salt marshes in Louisiana, USA.…”

Section: Opportunities and Challenges In The Special Featurementioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Contributi On S To This S Pecial Fe Atu R Ementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a combination of approaches is important to provide a better understanding of the resilience of ecological systems. For example, experiments might help to unravel processes promoting resilience, which might be more difficult to observe in the field (Hoover et al., 2021; Jones et al., 2020; Lipoma et al., 2021). Combining theoretical studies with experiments and/or observational studies can also help to test the validity of resilience concepts (Li et al., 2021; Medeiros et al., 2021).…”

Section: Contributions To This Special Featurementioning

confidence: 99%

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Reconciling resilience across ecological systems, species and subdisciplines

et al. 2021

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Resilience has emerged as a key concept in ecology and conservation biology to understand and predict ecosystem responses to global change. In its broadest sense, resilience describes the ability of an ecosystem to resist, and recover from, a disturbance. However, the application of such a concept in different subdisciplines of ecology and in different study systems has resulted in a wide disparity of definitions and ways of quantifying resilience. This Special Feature, which spans the Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology and Functional Ecology, provides an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different study systems. The 29 contributions to this Special Feature show the broad range of approaches used by ecologists to study resilience. Almost half of the contributions (48%) study resilience at the community level, with a 30% of them studying resilience at multiple levels of biological organisation. A large proportion of these articles are observational (42%), experimental (14%) or a combination of both (17%) while a 17% utilise theoretical or computational approaches. Although 38%, 21% and 14% of the studies were based solely on plants, animals or micro‐organisms, respectively, 17% of them incorporated these multiple trophic levels. Synthesis. A unified ecological understanding of resilience across systems and taxa requires a trans‐disciplinary consensus on what resilience actually is and how to best measure it. Here, we provide an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different ecological systems and subdisciplines, with reference to the diverse approaches used by contributions to this Special Feature. We identify four key recommendations to harmonise future efforts in resilience research: (a) define resilience using existing theoretical frameworks; (b) use common and comparable metrics to measure resilience; (c) clearly contextualise and define the pre‐ and post‐disturbance state of the ecological system and (d) consider explicitly the disturbance type and regime impacting the system.

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“…Furthermore, the state is relatively densely populated compared to most of the wildfire-vulnerable Western U.S., causing anthropogenic activity to contribute substantially to the intensifying hazard and its human impacts. Finally, Louisiana-based studies on wildfire to date are largely limited to environmental (Haywood et al 2000, Drewa et al 2002, Jones and Chamberlain 2004, Haywood 2011, Stambaugh et al 2011, Yeldell et al 2017, Jones et al 2020, Simmons and Bossart 2020, with substantially less work on risk assessment to property.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future Property Risk Estimation For Wildfire In Louisiana, USA

Mostafiz

Friedland

Rohli

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Background: Wildfire is an important but understudied natural hazard. As with other natural hazards, wildfire research is all too often conducted at too broad a spatial scale to identify local or regional patterns. This study addresses these gaps by examining the current and future wildfire property risk at the census-block level in Louisiana, a U.S. state with relatively dense population and substantial vulnerability to loss from this hazard, despite its wet climate. Here wildfire risk is defined as the product of exposure and vulnerability to the hazard, where exposure is a function of the historical and anticipated future wildfire frequency and extent, and the latter is a function of population, structure and content property value, damage probability, and percent of property damaged. Results: Historical (1992−2015) average annual statewide property loss due to wildfire was $5,556,389 (2010$), with the greatest risk to wildfire in southwestern inland, east-central, extreme northwestern, and coastal southwestern Louisiana. Based on existing climate and environmental model output, this research projects that wildfire will increase by 25 percent by 2050 in Louisiana from current values. When combined with projections of population and property value, it is determined that the geographic distribution of risk by 2050 will remain similar to that today – with highest risk in southwestern inland Louisiana and east-central Louisiana. However, the magnitude of risk will increase across the state, especially in those areas. Projected annual loss will be $11,167,496 by 2050 (2010$) due to population growth, intensification of development at the wildland-urban interface, and climate change. The wildfire-induced property damage is notable because it is projected to increase by 101 percent. These values do not include crop, forestry, or indirect losses (e.g., cost of evacuation and missed time at work), which are likely to be substantial. Conclusions: The results suggest that increased efforts are needed to contain wildfires, to reduce the future risk. Otherwise, wildfire managers, environmental planners, actuaries, community leaders, and individual property owners in Louisiana will need to anticipate and budget for additional efforts to mitigate the economic (and presumably other) impacts associated with a substantial and increasing hazard that often goes underestimated.

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Stress gradients interact with disturbance to reveal alternative states in salt marsh: Multivariate resilience at the landscape scale

Cited by 13 publications

References 88 publications

Extreme Precipitation and Flooding Contribute to Sudden Vegetation Dieback in a Coastal Salt Marsh

Extreme Precipitation and Flooding Contribute to Sudden Vegetation Dieback in a Coastal Salt Marsh

Reconciling resilience across ecological systems, species and subdisciplines

Future Property Risk Estimation For Wildfire In Louisiana, USA

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