This study challenges the paradigm that salt marsh plants prevent lateral wave-induced erosion along wetland edges by binding soil with live roots and clarifies the role of vegetation in protecting the coast. In both laboratory flume studies and controlled field experiments, we show that common salt marsh plants do not significantly mitigate the total amount of erosion along a wetland edge. We ...

There is an ongoing eutrophication process in the Ria de Aveiro coastal lagoon (Portugal), with progressive replacement of rooted primary producers for macroalgae. Taking advantage of a well-defined environmental contamination gradient, we studied mercury accumulation and distribution in the aboveground and the belowground biomass of several salt marsh plants, including the seagrass species Zos...

Heterotrophic bacteria and fungi are widely recognized as crucial mediators of carbon, nutrient, and energy flow in ecosystems, yet information on their total annual production in benthic habitats is lacking. To assess the significance of annual microbial production in a structurally complex system, we measured production rates of bacteria and fungi over an annual cycle in four aerobic habitats...

Lake Okeechobee is a large (1,730 km) freshwater lake located at the center of the interconnected south Florida aquatic ecosystem. The lake is shallow (average depth <3 m), originated about 6,000 years ago during oceanic recession, and under natural conditions probably was a slightly eutrophic and had vast marshes to the west and south. The southern marsh was contiguous with the Florida Evergla...

The role of tidal marshes as a source of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) for adjacent estuarine waters was studied in the Rhode River subestuary of the Chesapeake Bay. Water in a tidal creek draining brackish, high-elevation marshes was sampled every hour during several semidiurnal tidal cycles in order to examine the tidal exchange of dissolved organi...

Salt marshes are a common feature in coastal regions and have been noted for their ability to attenuate wave energy, providing an important first line of defense. Marsh plants usually consist multiple leaves distributed along central stem. This paper constructed model predicting force on marsh plant by modeling the reconfiguration both stem waves. The individual leaf models full were validated ...

Ammonium Preference: Agrostis canina (velvet bentgrass) Amphibolis antarctica (a seagrass) Callitriche hamulata (a water starwort) Ceratophyllum demersum (hornwort) Cymodocea rotundata (a seagrass) Drepanocladus fluitans (an aquatic moss) Eichhornia crassipes (water hyacinth) Elodea densa (Anacharis) Elodea nuttallii (Western waterweed) Fontinalis antipyretica (willow moss) Halodule uninervis (...

Constructed wetlands have been used effectively to reduce the mass loads of organic and nutrient components from swine anaerobic lagoons. Continuous marsh wetlands with gentle slope and intermittent flows seem to be the best for promoting oxidation and minimizing ammonia volatilization. However, the pond section of the marsh-pond-marsh section could potentially be effectively aerated by mechani...