Perspectives on a 30-Year Career of Salt Marsh Research

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James T. Morris
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Salt Marsh ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Early Career ◽  
North Inlet ◽  
University Of South Carolina ◽  
Environmental Biology ◽  
School Students ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research

A hallmark of my career has been the development of a model of the responses of salt marsh vascular plants to changes in sea level. This discovery would not have been possible without long-term support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) and Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) programs. The LTER and LTREB programs have provided platforms for student research that would have been difficult or impossible to duplicate. Most of my students have benefited from the background of data, which stimulate a never-ending source of thesis topics and from the logistical support. My communication skills have been improved by LTER-sponsored workshops with journalists. I also have had an opportunity to share my enthusiasm for fieldwork with primary school students and teachers. Many of my numerous collaborations are consequences of novel, long-term data that emerged from research supported by the LTER and LTREB programs. There are important environmental trends that develop slowly in response to climate or that reveal themselves infrequently, such as disturbance responses, thresholds, and tipping points. These require long-term, place-based observation of the kind that the LTER and LTREB programs are designed to facilitate. My history with the LTER program began in the late 1970s. As a Yale graduate student working at The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, I participated in a workshop organized by Dan Botkin to develop a rationale for a longterm ecological monitoring program (Botkin 1978). After a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship, I moved in 1981 to the University of South Carolina (USC), which had sponsored one of the first LTER sites, North Inlet (NIN). North Inlet was the perfect place for starting a research program in salt marsh ecology, and my research there eventually was supported by the NSF LTREB program. I owe a great deal to NSF for that. My early career benefited enormously from infrastructure at USC’s field laboratory and support by the NIN LTER program, which I did not fully appreciate at the time.

Coda: Some Reflections on the Long-Term Ecological Research Program

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Schlesinger
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Research ◽  
Environmental Biology ◽  
College Age ◽  
Lake Washington ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Long Term Studies

Ecology has a history of long-term studies that offer great insight to ecosystem processes. The advent of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program institutionalized long-term studies with some core measurements at a selection of sites across North America. The most successful LTER sites are those that have an energetic leader with a clear vision, who has guided the work over many years. Several LTER sites have established successful education programs for K–12 and college-age students, as well as for science policy-makers. Implementation of more and better cross-site work would be welcome. The various essays in this volume reflect a broad range of experiences among participants in the LTER program. Nearly all are positive: only mad dogs bite the hand that feeds them. All authors appreciate the advantages of long-term funding for their research and lament that funding of the LTER program by the National Science Foundation (NSF) is so limited. There are numerous testimonials for how the LTER program has changed and broadened participation in collaborative science. The real question is whether the LTER program has allowed science to proceed faster, deeper, broader, and with more critical insight than if the program had not been created. To answer that question, I offer a few personal reflections on the LTER program. First, we must note that long-term research existed well before the LTER program. Edmondson began his long-term measurements of exogenous phosphorus in Lake Washington in the early 1950s (Edmondson 1991). Across the country, Herb Bormann and Gene Likens began long-term studies, now in their 50th year, of forest biogeochemistry at Hubbard Brook in 1963 (Likens 2013). Each of these long-term studies enjoys ample coverage in every text of introductory ecology. The advantages of long-term research are undisputed among those who are funded for it. Indeed, NSF embraces a wide variety of decade-long studies with its Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) program. The authors of several chapters recall how Howard Odum’s early work focused their attention on the connections between large units of the landscape.

scholarly journals Contrasting Patterns of Phytoplankton Community Pigment Composition in Two Salt Marsh Estuaries in Southeastern United States

2003 ◽  
Vol 69 (7) ◽  
pp. 4129-4143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Noble ◽  
Raphael G. Tymowski ◽  
Madilyn Fletcher ◽  
James T. Morris ◽  
Alan J. Lewitus
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Salt Marsh ◽  
Phytoplankton Community ◽  
Nutrient Loading ◽  
Phytoplankton Bloom ◽  
Diversity Index ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Tidal Mixing ◽  
North Inlet ◽  
Pigment Composition

ABSTRACT Phytoplankton community pigment composition and water quality were measured seasonally along salinity gradients in two minimally urbanized salt marsh estuaries in South Carolina in order to examine their spatial and temporal distributions. The North Inlet estuary has a relatively small watershed with minimal fresh water input, while the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto (ACE) Basin is characterized by a relatively greater influence of riverine drainage. Sampling stations were located in regions of the estuaries experiencing frequent diurnal tidal mixing and had similar salinity and temperature regimens. Phytoplankton community pigment composition was assessed by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and multivariate statistical analyses. Shannon diversity index, principal-component, and cluster analyses revealed that phytoplankton community pigments in both estuaries were seasonally variable, with similar diversities but different compositions. The temporal pigment patterns indicated that there was a relatively weak correlation between the pigments in ACE Basin and the relative persistence of photopigment groups in North Inlet. The differences were presumably a consequence of the unpredictability and relatively greater influence of river discharge in the ACE Basin, in contrast to the greater environmental predictability of the more tidally influenced North Inlet. Furthermore, the timing, magnitude, and pigment composition of the annual phytoplankton bloom were different in the two estuaries. The bloom properties in North Inlet reflected the predominance of autochthonous ecological control (e.g., regenerated nutrients, grazing), and those in ACE Basin suggested that there was greater influence of allochthonous environmental factors (e.g., nutrient loading, changes in turbidity). These interestuarine differences in phytoplankton community structure and control provide insight into the organization of phytoplankton in estuaries.

The bly creek ecosystem study: Phosphorus transport within a euhaline salt marsh basin, North Inlet, South Carolina

1990 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard F. Dame ◽  
Thomas G. Wolaver ◽  
Thomas M. Williams ◽  
John D. Spurrier ◽  
Anne B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Salt Marsh ◽  
North Inlet ◽  
Phosphorus Transport

scholarly journals First person – Matthew Zdradzinski

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (7) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Axon Growth ◽  
Mrna Localization ◽  
Early Career ◽  
First Person ◽  
University Of South Carolina ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Mrna Isoform ◽  
Selection Of

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Matthew Zdradzinski is co-first author on ‘Selective axonal translation of the mRNA isoform encoding prenylated Cdc42 supports axon growth’, published in JCS. Matthew is a PhD Student in the lab of Jeffery Twiss at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, where he is interested in neurobiology, focused around mRNA localization and its effects on axon growth, development and regeneration.

Sheet Flow in a Salt-Marsh Basin, North Inlet, South Carolina

Estuaries ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry L. Miller ◽  
L. R. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Salt Marsh ◽  
North Inlet ◽  
Sheet Flow

Networking: From the Long-Term Ecological Research Program to the National Ecological Observatory Network

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Hayden
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
Cape Cod ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
Environmental Biology ◽  
The North ◽  
Virginia Coast Reserve ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Disciplinary Background

As a scientist, the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has been on my mind for more than three decades. As an educator, I have served in the classroom for 41 years. The merger of the physical and the ecological sciences was at the core of my teaching philosophy. As a science communicator, I informed the general public on issues of climate and climate change. As a collaborator, I found that understanding strengths and weaknesses in collaborative partnerships best ensures success. As a science leader, I served at the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the Director of the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB), established the Schoolyard LTER Program, and launched the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). My disciplinary background includes formal graduate education at the University of Wisconsin in meteorology, climatology, and paleoclimatology, as well as in oceanography and biology (mycology, botany, zoology, and genecology). As a postdoctoral fellow, my scientific identity was on track to culminate as a paleoclimatologist. As an assistant and associate professor, my identity morphed to include coastal geomorphology (Hayden et al. 1995). Finally, my experiences in the LTER program have vectored my career toward the interactions of climate and vegetation (Hayden 1998). My affiliation is with the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) site in the LTER program (1986–2014). As one of the founding principal investigators of the VCR site, I have served in subsequent renewals as its principal or co-principal investigator. Our site-based research plan focused on the Virginia Coast Reserve on Virginia’s eastern shore with a focus on the dynamics of the chain of 14 barrier islands, bounded by the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay to the south and Assateague Barrier Island to the north. This peninsula is 100 km in length by 20 km in width. Only the islands fronting the Mississippi delta are more dynamic in both the temporal and spatial domains. Prior to joining the LTER program, my research was hemispheric to regional in scope, and it focused on the environmental dynamics of the Atlantic Coast from Florida to Cape Cod at 50-m intervals (Fenster and Hayden 2007).

scholarly journals Spores and soil from six sides: interdisciplinarity and the environmental biology of anthrax (Bacillus anthracis)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin J. Carlson ◽  
Wayne M. Getz ◽  
Kyrre L. Kausrud ◽  
Carrie A. Cizauskas ◽  
Jason K. Blackburn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bacillus Anthracis ◽  
Disease Ecology ◽  
Seasonal Pattern ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Ecosystem Structure ◽  
Environmental Biology ◽  
Environmental Persistence ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Anthrax Spores

AbstractEnvironmentally Transmitted Diseases Are Comparatively Poorly Understood And Managed, And Their Ecology Is Particularly Understudied. Here We Identify Challenges Of Studying Environmental Transmission And Persistence With A Six-Sided Interdisciplinary Review Of The Biology Of Anthrax (Bacillus Anthracis). Anthrax Is A Zoonotic Disease Capable Of Maintaining Infectious Spore Banks In Soil For Decades (Or Even Potentially Centuries), And The Mechanisms Of Its Environmental Persistence Have Been The Topic Of Significant Research And Controversy. Where Anthrax Is Endemic, It Plays An Important Ecological Role, Shaping The Dynamics Of Entire Herbivore Communities. The Complex Eco-Epidemiology Of Anthrax, And The Mysterious Biology OfBacillus AnthracisDuring Its Environmental Stage, Have Necessitated An Interdisciplinary Approach To Pathogen Research. Here, We Illustrate Different Disciplinary Perspectives Through Key Advances Made By Researchers Working In Etosha National Park, A Long-Term Ecological Research Site In Namibia That Has Exemplified The Complexities Of Anthrax’S Enzootic Process Over Decades Of Surveillance. In Etosha, The Role Of Scavengers And Alternate Routes (Waterborne Transmission And Flies) Has Proved Unimportant, Relative To The Long-Term Persistence Of Anthrax Spores In Soil And Their Infection Of Herbivore Hosts. Carcass Deposition Facilitates Green-Ups Of Vegetation To Attract Herbivores, Potentially Facilitated By Anthrax Spores’ Role In The Rhizosphere. The Underlying Seasonal Pattern Of Vegetation, And Herbivores’ Immune And Behavioral Responses To Anthrax Risk, Interact To Produce Regular “Anthrax Seasons” That Appear To Be A Stable Feature Of The Etosha Ecosystem. Through The Lens Of Microbiologists, Geneticists, Immunologists, Ecologists, Epidemiologists, And Clinicians, We Discuss How Anthrax Dynamics Are Shaped At The Smallest Scale By Population Genetics And Interactions Within The Bacterial Communities Up To The Broadest Scales Of Ecosystem Structure. We Illustrate The Benefits And Challenges Of This Interdisciplinary Approach To Disease Ecology, And Suggest Ways Anthrax Might Offer Insights Into The Biology Of Other Important Pathogens.Bacillus Anthracis,And The More Recently EmergedBacillus CereusBiovarAnthracis, Share Key Features With Other Environmentally-Transmitted Pathogens, Including Several Zoonoses And Panzootics Of Special Interest For Global Health And Conservation Efforts. Understanding The Dynamics Of Anthrax, And Developing Interdisciplinary Research Programs That Explore Environmental Persistence, Is A Critical Step Forward For Understanding These Emerging Threats.

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