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Intern Logs: A Summer Quest
to Understand Winter

Monday, July 21st, 2014

by Dejeanne Doublet

Photo: SERC intern Dejeanne Doublet heads out to sample marsh elder, a plant that in some zones coped surprisingly well with the harsh winter. (Credit Megan Palmer)

SERC intern Dejeanne Doublet heads out to sample marsh elder.
(Megan Palmer)

As we’re knee-deep in the marsh surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, working under the relentless sun during 90-degree weather with 90 percent humidity, sweat dripping down our faces, waving off the summer bugs and trying to collect as much field data as possible, the idea of winter becomes abstract and far-fetched. It’s hard to believe we are out here in the blazing heat of summer studying the effects of this past winter— one of harshest winters this area has endured in many years.

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to Understand Winter

Getting to the core of carbon in forest soils

Tuesday, July 8th, 2014

By Sarah Hansen

James Biddle, SERC intern, twists a soil augur into the ground to collect a 50 to 100 cm deep soil core.

James Biddle, SERC intern, twists a soil augur into the ground to collect a 50- to 100-centimeter deep soil core.

It’s well-known that carbon dioxide levels are rising in Earth’s atmosphere and that extra CO₂ contributes to climate change. You might also have learned that trees are “carbon sinks” – they take carbon out of the air and store it in their trunks, roots and leaves. But what about carbon in forest soil?

If you’re not sure, you’re in good company. “We’re just learning how carbon moves through the forest at the surface, and that’s the most accessible part of the forest,” said Sean McMahon, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). “Below ground is much more of a mystery.” Click to continue »

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Seeking Life in the Mud

Friday, June 13th, 2014

By Sarah Hansen

Dean Janiak (left) and Ben Rubinoff collect a sample from the Rhode River.

Most of us think of the Chesapeake Bay as a single entity – one big body of water. But Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) ecologist Dean Janiak and his intern, Ben Rubinoff, have a more nuanced perspective. They’ve collected more than 150 samples from eight different habitats within the Bay and along its shoreline that contain mud, sand and lots of tiny animals.

Their ultimate goal: Discover how differences in habitats in the Rhode River (a sub-estuary of the Chesapeake Bay) can change biodiversity among creatures at the bottom of the river, and how those patterns change over time. If it turns out that some habitats host more diverse animal communities than others, land managers can focus conservation efforts on those areas. Click to continue »

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Invasive plant may protect forests from drowning

Thursday, June 12th, 2014

Citizen scientists brave dense swamps to find truth behind Phrag

By Sarah Hansen

Jack Hays bands a tree in the marsh.

Sea-level rise triggered by climate change affects coastal ecosystems first. Marshes and wetlands along the shoreline creep inland, infringing on forest habitats. Scientists have strong evidence that too much water will gradually drown the trees. But an invasive reedy plant, known as “Phrag” from its scientific name, Phragmites australis, might be the forests’ unlikely protector, delaying drowning by about a decade.

Invasive Phrag (there is a native subspecies, as well) first came to the U.S. from Europe over 200 years ago. The native variety coexists peacefully with other plants, but the invader takes over a habitat, choking off other flora. Only recently, however, has its population growth exploded. Scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center are trying to find out whether large Phrag populations in wetlands help or hurt tree growth. It might seem counterintuitive, but scientists hypothesize that the Phrag is actually helping trees survive as sea level rises. By removing some of the water, Phrag may prevent trees from drowning. Click to continue »

Posted in Climate Change, Ecology, Invasive Species, Publications | 1 Response »

The Strange, Controversial Way Plants Trap CO₂

Wednesday, June 11th, 2014

by Kristen Minogue

Swamp Rose Mallow surrounded by blades of Schoenoplectus, a sedge in Drake's marsh experiment. (SERC)

Swamp Rose Mallow with blades of Schoenoplectus americanus, a sedge in Drake’s marsh experiment. (SERC)

Plants are among the world’s best carbon sinks, but there’s a side to the plant-CO2 love affair that’s rarely discussed. When carbon dioxide rises, plants cling to it more, releasing less back into the air—and until recently, scientists couldn’t figure out why. With a new paper published June 11 in Global Change Biology, ecologist Bert Drake believes he finally has the answer.

The process is called respiration, and it’s one of the most overlooked parts of the carbon cycle. Unlike photosynthesis, in which plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, respiration reverses it. And plants respire constantly. Much of the CO2 plants take from the atmosphere for photosynthesis finds its way back via respiration from plants and soil. Which leaves a major question: How much carbon can the world’s ecosystems store as CO2 rises and climate changes?

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Arctic Unguarded: Melting Ice Opens Way
for Invaders

Wednesday, May 28th, 2014

by Kristen Minogue

Arctic sea ice (Patrick Kelley/U.S. Coast Guard)

For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The new sea routes leave both coasts and Arctic waters vulnerable to a large wave of invasive species—a problem the Arctic has largely avoided until now.

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Posted in Alaska, Climate Change, Ecology, Invasive Species, Publications | 1 Response »

Intern Logs: Mussels and the Melting Arctic

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014

by Amanda Guthrie, Marine Invasions Lab Intern

Mytilus mussels in Point Judith Marina, Rhode Island. (Photo by Kim Holzer)

Mytilus mussels in Point Judith Marina, Rhode Island. (Kim Holzer)

Imagine after settling down on a place to stay, your home picks up speed and moves without any forewarning, bringing you along with it to a new place. You get off to explore. It seems livable and similar to home, but a few adjustments will be necessary.

This story would be possible — if you were a mussel, a barnacle, or a myriad of other intertidal organisms. Once there, these new arrivals are sometimes able to escape their predators at home and thrive—often at the expense of native species, or the ecosystem as a whole.

Such is the dilemma of Mytilus galloprovincialis, a mussel from the Mediterranean. Mytilus galloprovincialis is native to southern Europe but has branched out to numerous non-native regions around the globe. It is the most prevalent non-native marine species in South Africa. There, it not only competitively displaced native species but also catalyzed the decline of swimming crabs and the increase of whelks.

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With Fewer Hard Frosts, Tropical Mangroves Push North

Monday, December 30th, 2013

by Kristen Minogue and Heather Dewar

SERC ecologist Kyle Cavanaugh explores a field of white mangroves. (SERC)

As mangrove trees lose ground to deforestation and urban sprawl, one development seems to be giving them a boost: climate change. Fewer winter cold snaps have empowered them to conquer new territory around their northern Florida boundary, according to a study of 28 years of satellite data from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the University of Maryland.

An estimated 35 percent of the world’s mangroves have been destroyed since 1980, according to previous research, outstripping tropical rainforests and coral reefs. They are also some of the planet’s most valuable ecosystems. Mangroves protect coastal cities from floods and hurricanes. Their above-ground roots shelter many commercially valuable fisheries, including blue crabs, shrimp and lobsters. And they are phenomenal at burying carbon. The soils of coastal ecosystems like mangroves can store carbon at a rate 50 times higher than tropical rainforests. Scientists have estimated their total ecosystem services value more than $1.6 trillion a year—making the expansion a possible blessing.

“Some people may say this is a good thing, because of the tremendous threats that mangroves face,” said the study’s lead author, Kyle Cavanaugh, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. “But this is not taking place in a vacuum. The mangroves are replacing salt marshes, which have important ecosystem functions and food webs of their own.”

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Posted in Climate Change, Ecology, Publications | 1 Response »

Wetlands Can Resist Rising Seas, If We Let Them

Thursday, December 5th, 2013

by Kristen Minogue

Fishing camp along Falgout Canal Bayou, La., where marsh has submerged into open water and remains mostly on canal leaves. (Matt Kirwin/VIMS)

Left to themselves, coastal wetlands can adapt to sea-level rise. But humans could be sabotaging some of their best defenses, according to a review paper from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science to be published Thursday, Dec. 5, in Nature.

The threat of disappearing coastlines has alerted many to the dangers of climate change. Wetlands in particular—with their ability to buffer coastal cities from floods and storms, and filter out pollution—offer protections that could be lost in the future. But, say co-authors Matt Kirwan and Patrick Megonigal, higher waters are not the key factor in wetland demise. Thanks to an intricate system of ecosystem feedbacks, wetlands are remarkably good at building up soil to outpace sea-level rise. But this ability has limits. The real issue, the scientists say, is that human structures such as dams and seawalls are disrupting the natural mechanisms that have allowed coastal marshes to survive rising seas since at least the end of the last ice age.

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Of Censusing Trees and Elephant Dung

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

by Kristen Minogue

Herve Memiaghe, front, in Gabon’s Rabi forest plot. The red line marks where they measure the tree’s diameter. (Smithsonian Institution)

Herve Memiaghe isn’t the average intern. Before coming to the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, the 33-year-old Gabonese ecologist had already earned a master’s degree and spent four years working at IRET, the Institute for Research in Tropical Ecology in Gabon. Since 2012 he has also done field work in the Rabi plot as part of the Smithsonian’s global forest study.

The 25-hectare Rabi plot sits on the southwest coast of Gabon. Diversity spikes in the rainforests of Central Africa, where a single hectare can contain more than 400 different species. And that’s just the trees. The animals bring problems of their own. In Memiaghe’s experience, it’s not uncommon for hungry elephants to eat the tree tags along with the leaves.

“Sometimes we find the tag in the dung of elephants,” Memiaghe says. Usually the scientists can figure out where the tag came from, so it doesn’t throw off their research that much. “It just maybe can be a mess for the new people.”

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Shorelines

Life and science at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Climate Change

...now browsing by category

Intern Logs: A Summer Quest
to Understand Winter

Getting to the core of carbon in forest soils

Seeking Life in the Mud

Invasive plant may protect forests from drowning

The Strange, Controversial Way Plants Trap CO₂

Arctic Unguarded: Melting Ice Opens Way
for Invaders

Intern Logs: Mussels and the Melting Arctic

With Fewer Hard Frosts, Tropical Mangroves Push North

Wetlands Can Resist Rising Seas, If We Let Them

Of Censusing Trees and Elephant Dung