OPUS: Coupling of Carbon, Nitrogen, Silica and Phosphorus Cycles in Coastal Ecosystems: Climate Effects and Trophic Implications

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Located at the interface between land, atmosphere and ocean, estuaries are shaped by their physical properties and the surrounding landscape. These dynamic coastal systems respond to changes in climate and human actions over years and decades. Many estuaries receive large inputs of nutrients from adjacent ecosystems that fuels the high productivity of both plants and animals. Estuaries are also sites of intense cycling (re-use) of key elements like carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and silica. This project uses the Chesapeake Bay region to investigate how elemental cycles maybe synchronized over regions and seasons, how linkages between different element cycles are affected by estuary shape, climate and increased nutrients, and how living resources, such as zooplankton and shellfish, respond to changes in element cycles. These processes will be evaluated in linked estuarine networks using a large monitoring database and simple computational models. Comparisons among subregions, such as different river tributaries, will generate a broader knowledge about estuaries in general.Society will benefit from a deeper understanding of how different regions and element cycles of complex estuaries, such as the Chesapeake Bay, are linked and respond to change because this new knowledge will inform watershed management plans. This work will advance knowledge of how climate modifies living resource and water quality responses to nutrient management. Project investigators will collaborate with Chesapeake Bay resource managers to analyze data and and interpret results, making the results immediately useful for developing nutrient waste management strategies that improve water quality and sustain living resources. This study will also stimulate development of a new graduate course that teaches the logic, importance and methods of synthesis research.