On Landscape Development and Ecological Processes in a Tide-dominated Barrier-Lagoon Complex

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A long-term ecological research program will be conducted on the barrier-estuarine system on the Atlantic coast of Virginia. This 1,000-km2 system has developed during the period of Holocene sea level rise. This project is designed to incorporate a wide domain of scales of time and space. The interrelationships of secular climate change, sea-level change, island movement, and marsh growth and development will be studied with data from dated sediment cores. The interrelationships of the current climatic environment, stochastic climatic disturbances and surficial landscape processes such as plant and animal succession will be studied with data from remotely-sensed imagery, field and laboratory experimentation, and direct field observation of population distributions and processes such as decomposition and element cycling. A system of three coupled models, including a biogeochemical process model, a succession model and a landscape model, will be used both to guide and to synthesize studies of processes occurring on different scales of time and space. This research undertaking will be conducted by a truly remarkable interdisciplinary research group each member of which is an outstanding scientist in his own right. The group is organized in a completely integrated and collaborative fashion and a major synergism should result. The University of Virginia will provide excellent on-campus facilities for the work which will be a department-level centerpiece commanding a significant allocation of new support resources. The Nature Conservancy, owners of the research site, will participate in the support of the project by both direct and in-kind avenues in addition to assuming all costs for site integrity and security. The organization of the total project team is extraordinary. The project and scientific group come fully prepared at the outset to assume a leadership position within the family of concurrent similar research efforts at the landscape scale. Plans are already being implemented for several kinds of collaborative efforts in areas of science and technology appropriate and important to the achievement of major progress. In addition to the obvious characteristics of high quality fundamental ecological research this project will offer the opportunity to affect the management of critical and fragile natural resources of the coastal zone. The Ecosystem Studies Program recommends that funding be made available for the first year of this five-year continuing award.