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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Marine Heatwaves In The Chesapeake Bay, Piero L. F. Mazzini, Cassia Pianca
Marine Heatwaves In The Chesapeake Bay, Piero L. F. Mazzini, Cassia Pianca
VIMS Articles
Prolonged events of anomalously warm sea water temperature, or marine heatwaves (MHWs), have major detrimental effects to marine ecosystems and the world's economy. While frequency, duration and intensity of MHWs have been observed to increase in the global oceans, little is known about their potential occurrence and variability in estuarine systems due to limited data in these environments. In the present study we analyzed a novel data set with over three decades of continuous in situ temperature records to investigate MHWs in the largest and most productive estuary in the US: the Chesapeake Bay. MHWs occurred on average twice per …
Sea Level Rise May Increase Extinction Risk Of A Saltmarsh Ontogenetic Habitat Specialist, David S. Johnson, Bethany L. Williams
Sea Level Rise May Increase Extinction Risk Of A Saltmarsh Ontogenetic Habitat Specialist, David S. Johnson, Bethany L. Williams
VIMS Articles
Specialist species are more vulnerable to environmental change than generalist species. For species with ontogenetic niche shifts, specialization may occur at a particular life stage making those stages more susceptible to environmental change. In the salt marshes in the northeast U.S., accelerated sea level rise is shifting vegetation patterns from flood-intolerant species such as Spartina patens to the flood-tolerant Spartina alterniflora. We tested the potential impact of this change on the coffee bean snail, Melampus bidentatus, a numerically dominant benthic invertebrate with an ontogenetic niche shift. From a survey of eight marshes throughout the northeast U.S., small snails …