LTER: Environmental drivers and ecosystem state change in a coastal barrier landscape

This project uses long-term data to predict how coastlines will change in response to environmental change. Nearly half the world’s population lives on the coast. Even more humans depend on coastal resources. These resources are threatened by sea-level rise, warming air and water temperatures, and changes in the frequency and strength of storms and rainfall. The best way to understand how and why coasts are changing in response to these threats is to use long-term ecological data. This project will use long-term experiments and models to predict how future environments will affect coasts and their resources. The research will be done at the Virginia Coast Reserve Long-Term Ecological Research (VCR LTER) site. The results will benefit society by improving coastal management that will protect shorelines, increase biodiversity, and produce seafood. VCR LTER research builds on prior research and addresses three themes that test fundamental theories of ecosystem state change and spatial ecology: 1) mechanisms and consequences of state change within ecosystems; 2) connectivity and coupled dynamics between ecosystems; and 3) landscape-scale dynamics of ecosystem function, synchrony, and stability. VCR LTER research will identify biophysical feedbacks that either maintain or facilitate transitions in ecosystem states--including disturbance, recovery and restoration--and threshold responses to environmental drivers. The project will develop mechanistic models, calibrated and validated with short- and long-term data, and will use these to project state change. Additionally, the consequences of state change and cross-scale interactions for ecosystems attributes will be investigated, focusing on biodiversity, organic matter, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration. Collectively, this research increases the current and predictive understanding of how coastal ecosystems and their functions respond to environmental drivers. Cross-site and synthesis studies enhance the impact of the site-based research and contribute to broader knowledge on ecosystem transitions in response to long-term trends and variation in the environment. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.