ETBC Collaborative Research: Feedbacks between nutrient enrichment and intertidal sediments: erosion, stabilization, and landscape evolution

三十多年来，海岸生态系统中人为营养物质负荷的影响一直是科学家、海岸管理者和公众关注的主要问题。营养丰富导致各种负面生态后果，包括浮游植物水华的强度、持续时间和频率增加，低氧和缺氧事件，大型藻类水华增加，鱼类和贝类栖息地丧失，底栖生物多样性减少，以及鳗草床的丧失。值得注意的是，在潮间带地区所做的工作很少，也很少有研究涉及营养丰富对沿海地貌的影响，或者生物地球化学循环的变化如何通过促进侵蚀、沉积和海岸线演变来改变海岸线。这项研究确定了人为营养物质负荷对马萨诸塞州梅子岛LTER遗址潮滩和盐沼的影响。将使用最先进的现场和实验室技术工作。各种实地参数的定量测量将被纳入耦合的数值模型，这些模型将被用作检查在较长时间尺度和不同地点对景观和生态系统的影响的工具。这项工作的结果将是可推广的，并广泛适用于世界任何地方的浅海景观。这项工作的更广泛影响包括向土地管理者提供海岸侵蚀和湿地评估的重要预测，将研究和教育结合起来，培训大量本科生和博士后，以及支持早期职业研究人员。

For more than three decades, the impact of anthropogenic nutrient loading in coastal ecosystems has been a major concern of scientists, coastal managers, and the public. Nutrient enrichment leads to a variety of negative ecosystem consequences including increased intensity, duration, and frequency of phytoplankton blooms, hypoxic and anoxic events, increased macroalgae blooms, losses of fish and shellfish habitat, decreased benthic diversity, and loss of eelgrass beds. Remarkably, little work has been done in intertidal areas, and very few studies have addressed the effects of nutrient enrichment on the coastal landscape or how changes in biogeochemical cycles can modify the coastline by promoting erosion, accretion, and shoreline evolution. This research determines the impact of anthropogenic nutrient loading on tidal flats and salt marshes at the Plum Island LTER site, Massachusetts. State-of-the-art field and laboratory techniques work will be used. Quantitative measurements of a wide variety of field parameters will be incorporated into coupled numerical models that will be used as a tool for examining impacts to the landscape and ecosystem over longer-time scales and at different locations. Results of the work will be generalizable and widely applicable to shallow coastal landscapes anywhere in the world. Broader impacts of the work include providing important projections of coastal erosion and wetland assessments to land managers, integration of research and education, training of significant numbers of undergraduates and a postdoc, and support of an early career researcher.