Estuarine Ecosystem Adaptation Due to Environmental Variability and Watershed Restoration

This doctoral dissertation will examine the combined influences of ecological restoration, sea-level rise, and environmental variability on changes in the food webs of coastal ecosystems. Estuaries produce highly productive recreational and commercial fisheries that feed billions and drive economies. Many large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts target changes in freshwater systems that impact the functioning, productivity, and biodiversity of downstream coastal waters.

Simultaneously, environmental variability is driving changes in sea-level, temperature, and precipitation that are influencing the same characteristics of these same estuarine systems. The ecosystem model developed by this research will help resource managers and restoration practitioners design and plan for beneficial outcomes for coastal ecosystems given the complex interactions of these co-occurring drivers of change.

Modeling, prediction, and analysis of ecosystems impacted by the coupled effects of environmental variability and large-scale restoration efforts will lead to new knowledge of spatial and temporal estuarine ecosystem responses to these large-scale drivers. The project addresses the following questions: 1) How will changes in salinity range and variability, water depth, temperature, and bottom sediments affect the distribution of fishes, invertebrates, and seagrass coverage in estuaries? 2) How will future spatial and temporal ecosystem changes, resulting from the interactions of hydrological restoration and environmental change, affect productivity, fisheries landings, and food web structure in estuaries?

The doctoral student will develop habitat suitability models to incorporate into the student’s previously calibrated and validated aspatial ecosystem model and predict future estuarine dynamics with the development of a spatially explicit and temporally dynamic food web model. The modeled ecosystem has broad spatial and temporal salinity variation, has an economically valuable sport fishery, nursery habitat for commercial fisheries, disturbed watershed and hydrologic regime, ecosystem-scale restoration effort, and is vulnerable to the ubiquitous threat of environmental variability and sea-level rise that reflects future changes in systems worldwide.

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.