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High Carbon Dioxide Can Create “Shrinking Stems” in Marshes

Wednesday, September 25th, 2019

Marshes Grow Shorter, Denser Stems Under High Carbon Dioxide, Which Can Help Them Resist Sea Level Rise

by Kristen Minogue

Man in sunglasses and green T-shirt sitting in a marsh holding a measuring stick

Ecologist Meng Lu measures green blades of sedge in SERC’s Global Change Research Wetland in Maryland. Lu led a discovery that under higher carbon dioxide, sedges like these grow shorter and thinner stems. (Credit: Maria Sharova/SERC)

For most plants, carbon dioxide acts like a steroid: The more they can take in, the bigger they get. But in a new study published Sept. 25, scientists with the Smithsonian discovered something strange happening in marshes. Under higher levels of carbon dioxide, instead of producing bigger stems, marsh plants produced more stems that were noticeably smaller.

“I don’t think anybody expected this,” said Meng Lu, lead author of the new study in the journal Nature Climate Change. For years, scientists had known that carbon dioxide was bulking up the total biomass of marsh plants, so it seemed natural to think individual plants were getting bigger too. “Everyone thought, okay, [plants] increased, biomass increased, so the height, width, all should increase. But that’s not the case in a marsh,” he said.

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Global Change is Triggering an Identity Switch in Grasslands

Monday, August 19th, 2019
Landscape view of grasslands under blue, cloudy sky

Konza Prairie Biological Station in northeast Kansas. (Credit: Kim Komatsu/SERC)

Scientists Discover Species Turnover in Study of More Than 100 Grassland Experiments

by Kristen Minogue

Since the first Homo sapiens emerged in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago, grasslands have sustained humanity and thousands of other species. But today, those grasslands are shifting beneath our feet. Global change—which includes climate change, pollution and other widespread environmental alterations—is transforming the plant species growing in them, and not always in the ways scientists expected, a new study published Monday revealed.

Grasslands make up more than 40 percent of the world’s ice-free land. In addition to providing food for human-raised cattle and sheep, grasslands are home to animals found nowhere else in the wild, such as the bison of North America’s prairies or the zebras and giraffes of the African savannas. Grasslands also can hold up to 30 percent of the world’s carbon, making them critical allies in the fight against climate change. However, changes in the plants that comprise grasslands could put those benefits at risk.

“Is it good rangeland for cattle, or is it good at storing carbon?” said lead author Kim Komatsu, a grassland ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. “It really matters what the identities of the individual species are….You might have a really invaded weedy system that would not be as beneficial for these services that humans depend on.” Click to continue »

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May The Forest Be With You—SERC’s ForestGEO Census

Thursday, August 1st, 2019

by Quinn Burkhart

We’ve known for years that many of Earth’s forests are dying out and struggling to replenish their populations. At the Forest Global Earth Observatory, or ForestGEO, scientists are attempting to get to the root of this issue. A global network of research sites and scientists, ForestGEO studies how climate change is affecting tropical and temperate forests globally. Worldwide, ForestGEO examines how forests are changing over time at 67 sites in 27 countries. This totals to about 12,000 species and six million trees. Click to continue »

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The Invisible Flood: When We Can’t Tell We’re Drowning

Tuesday, June 18th, 2019

by Quinn Burkhart

Most people need to visit the ocean to get their sea water fix. But beneath their feet, those waters may already be closer than they think. “Saltwater intrusion,” which occurs when the sea level rises and pushes large amounts of saltwater onto the coast, is one of the most prominent—and least talked about—effects of climate change. Its influence on the Chesapeake Bay, one of the lowest regions in the United States, is gaining traction.

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Rethinking Carbon

Thursday, April 11th, 2019

A new team is using big data to change how the world calculates its carbon budget on the coasts

by Kristen Minogue

Mashup of 4 photos: Man kneeling in rainforest; man in muddy clothes and boots in marsh; man in sunglasses in marsh; woman doing math on a glass wall

Left to right: Jorge Ramos of Conservation International (Credit: Laura Jaramillo/Conservation International); James Holmquist of SERC (Credit: Lauren Brown); David Klinges of SERC (Credit: SERC); Kathe Todd-Brown of the International Soil Carbon Network (Credit: Andrea Starr/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory).

There’s a gaping hole in Earth’s carbon budget. Scientists have known about it for years, but the data to balance the books have proven hard to find. The blank line is for coastal wetlands—ecosystems that could protect us not only from climate change, but hurricanes, pollution and a host of other environmental hazards.

“When we think of carbon storage or natural climate solutions, a lot of the time forests and trees come to mind,” said David Klinges, a research technician at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). “Because trees have a lot of mass, they store a lot of carbon. But what is not as publicly recognized is that soils—and other forms of plants besides trees—they also store carbon.” Click to continue »

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As Sea Level Rises, Wetlands Crank Up Their Carbon Storage

Wednesday, March 6th, 2019

by Kristen Minogue

River surrounded by wetland on both sides.

Coastal wetlands like this one in Maryland store carbon more efficiently than any other natural ecosystem, and a new study shows they store even more when sea level rises. (Gary Peresta/SERC)

Some wetlands perform better under pressure. A new study revealed that when faced with sea-level rise, coastal wetlands respond by burying even more carbon in their soils.

Coastal wetlands—which include marshes, mangroves and seagrasses—already store carbon more efficiently than any other natural ecosystem, including forests. The latest study, published March 7 in the journal Nature, looked at how coastal wetlands worldwide react to rising seas and discovered they can rise to the occasion, offering additional protection against climate change. Click to continue »

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8 Ways Nature Can Help Us Conquer
Climate Change

Thursday, November 15th, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

The United States may be officially pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, but scientists are still brainstorming ways the country could meet its original goals. Mother Nature can lend a far more powerful hand than we thought, if given the chance.

Led by The Nature Conservancy, a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and other organizations looked at 21 “natural climate solutions,” like restoring forests and wetlands or planting cover crops. According to the report published Wednesday in Science Advances, these tactics could knock an estimated 1.2 trillion kilograms off the U.S.’s yearly carbon emissions—just enough to hit the country’s 2025 targets for the Paris agreement. And they come with a range of side benefits, including increased yields for farmers and decreased risks of catastrophic wildfires.

But to work, they would also require a serious rethinking of how our society values carbon. Today, saving 1,000 kg of carbon is worth about $10. To provide enough incentive to make these solutions widespread, the authors estimated those credits would need to go for at least $100 per 1,000 kg.

We’ve highlighted eight of these solutions below, but you can read about all 21 in the full report.

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Climate Change

Invasive Plants Can Boost Blue Carbon Storage

Monday, October 1st, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

Green marsh banks alongside river on a cloudy day

Some invasive plants like Phragmites australis, the light-brown stalks on this Maryland marsh, could more than double the ability of marshes and other coastal ecosystems to store blue carbon. (Credit: Gary Peresta/SERC)

When invasive species enter the picture, things are rarely black and white. A new paper has revealed that some plant invaders could help fight climate change by making it easier for ecosystems to store “blue carbon”—the carbon stored in coastal environments like salt marshes, mangroves and seagrasses. But other invaders, most notably animals, can do the exact opposite.

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Eelgrass Wasting Disease Has New Enemies: Drones & Artificial Intelligence

Tuesday, September 18th, 2018
underwater eelgrass with dark spots

Infected eelgrass blades show the dark lesions of eelgrass wasting disease.
(Credit: Olivia Graham/Cornell)

by Kristen Minogue

Every year, the world loses an estimated 7 percent of its seagrasses. While the reasons are manifold, one culprit has long confounded scientists: eelgrass wasting disease. This September a team of biologists is zeroing in on the problem, in the first study of the disease to stretch along the Pacific Coast from southern California to Alaska, with a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

“There are a number of seagrass monitoring programs that work on regional and to some degree on global scales, but most of them are really only looking at the cover and the abundance of the seagrass itself,” said Emmett Duffy, director of the Marine Global Earth Observatories (MarineGEO) headquartered at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

The new grant builds on collaborative work by the Zostera Experimental Network (ZEN), led by Duffy, and will look at how climate, biodiversity and other environmental aspects can change the course of the disease. The team is deploying a wide arsenal of weapons to understand it: In addition to marine biologists, they are bringing on geographers, computer scientists, artificial intelligence and drones. Click to continue »

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You’re Not the Only One Stressing About Climate Change

Tuesday, August 28th, 2018

By Philip Kiefer

Stress is universal – possibly the most constant aspect of life on Earth. And it’s not just for things with a brainstem. Plants are constantly reacting to their environments; they’re just more private about it. They’re constantly adjusting internal chemical signals, redistributing sugar and water, and sometimes jettisoning unneeded bits in the name of survival.

Lyntana Brougham, a visiting scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), is using these stress responses to look inside a salt marsh. By understanding how marsh plants like cordgrasses and sedges respond to higher temperatures, she hopes to develop a clearer picture of how climate change may stress the marsh as a whole.

Cordgrass illuminated by a flash of light.

Cordgrass at the GCREW marsh. (Philip Kiefer/SERC)

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