Gedan Lab @ GWU

LAB NEWS AND BLOG

August 2024: Iris Carvalho, vegging out in a summer internship

This summer, I had my first experience working with the Gedan Lab and the opportunity to work with the students at UVA’s Coastal Research Center on the southeastern shore of Virginia during the first week of my internship. Going into this, I knew I wanted this summer to be different, and one of new opportunities. I had no idea what I was walking into. All I had was a passion for science, the desire to try something new, and an open mind. Being the only high school student in a lab of 10-15 graduate and undergraduate students was overwhelming, but I was welcomed with open arms.

My first full day in the field was one I will not forget. Waking up early that first morning I had a giddy feeling of not knowing what was to come, but being ready to tackle anything. We started going through plots identifying species in all three sections of the forest. Once we started, we didn’t stop for hours. As people explained the purpose of our research, which was partly to look at the rise of the sea level and the migration of the marsh into the forest, I became more and more intrigued.

Before, when people would say plants are alive, I would acknowledge but not fully understand it. Looking at the ecosystem as a living being with different parts moving around, adapting, and changing gave me a whole new view of nature. After a couple of days of looking at non-woody vegetation, doing shrub surveys, and observing tree sampling, the week was almost over. I listened to a presentation by one of the graduate students about his research on trees on the shore. As he described how trees adapt, prepare, and react to different aspects of the environment, I understood what it meant for plants to be alive at a level I never had before. I thought, if this is what I understand knowing almost nothing about the subject matter, what could I learn in the weeks to come? It excited me to learn and made me curious about topics that were unknown to me a week earlier. During the next three weeks of working in the lab, going to retreats, and spending time with the rest of the students, I began to feel more comfortable and eager to go each day. It was an experience I will forever be grateful for.

April 2024: Bloom and doom

DC’s famous Japanese cherry trees are inundated by tidal fresh floods and hundreds must be removed to rebuild protective seawalls. Gedan Lab researcher Paul Leoni documents their final bloom in a Planet Foward photo story. https://planetforward.org/story/cherry-blossoms-sea-level-rise/

September 2023: Reflections from my REU: Expectations vs. Realities, by Noa Shapiro-Tamir

Since leaving the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) where I worked with Dr. Keryn Gedan’s lab on the long term research in Brownsville Forest Preserve, I have been integrating this new, challenging, and rewarding experience. I have many lingering takeaways from the experience, about how this corner world of ecological research operates but beyond that about how it feels to exist within that world, primarily in ways I did not expect. 

A primary lingering memory from the summer was the experience of getting to know the transitional ghost forest ecosystem.  Coming from a northeast deciduous forest never having worked on the coast, I expected the forest to feel unfamiliar and to be overwhelmed by the new wildlife, in both its beauty and challenges. In addition, knowing that the ecosystem is so visibly impacted by climate change, I expected that the work would feel emotionally draining day to day, that I would be carrying the weight of excruciating facts on my shoulders. In reality, the experience defied all these expectations.

When I arrived, I felt welcomed by the forest. Ironically, the low biodiversity helped me feel at home because there were fewer new plants for me to learn. Within a few short weeks, I could look around myself and know the species names of most woody vegetation around me. Although I still got turned around after many weeks of work, I enjoyed getting to know the 28 plots we worked in. I felt like I was returning to familiar rooms in my house each time I navigated between them. In terms of the emotional impact of the work, it wasn’t depressing in the ghost forest. Instead of what the name might suggest, the areas of marsh encroachment were beautiful, not shadowy dead zones. Yes, trees in these areas die, and I saw this in our work in the hours spent looking for tagged trees which had fallen into the marsh, but the forest was brimming with life, especially at the marsh edge. The reality was that we were experiencing the forest at just one time point with no prior reference, so I couldn’t look around myself and see what had been lost. I imagine that I would need to return year after year to establish this kind of connection. Even if I didn’t understand the significance of every number I wrote down, I knew our work was part of something larger and were intimately connected with the longer scale through the view of data management, in trying to ensure that our data would be accurate enough to line up with the prior years’. 

Another aspect of this world that I had to experience firsthand to understand was that for every hour of field work, no matter how grueling and never-ending it feels, there are many more hours of lab work waiting and even more hours of computer work after that. The field work is the “sexy” part, but the science cannot happen without the processing and analysis that comes with it. I learned that science is more work than I had previously thought, and requires skill sets beyond species identification and understanding of ecological processes. Just to execute the science and to obtain quality results requires attention to detail, constant and consistent communication, and willingness to wrestle with finicky equipment for hours more than planned. I felt lucky that my individual research allowed me to experience multiple different work niches, and get a little taste of multiple steps in the process.

Beyond my foiled expectations of the physical work environment, I also came into the REU program intimidated by the idea of working without a boss onsite and only seeing my mentor every few weeks. Little did I know that the support I would receive would be much more than a single person’s advice by Zoom. My support network extended to a wide web of people around me, from our lab’s wonderful field tech to graduate students in the Gedan Lab and other labs working at the VCR, to the LTER staff, and beyond. I felt a bit like a baby who might not yet know how to walk by themself but who is constantly buffeted by arms on all sides and so never quite falls down. It took me a while to be comfortable asking for help, and I realize now that I needed to gain knowledge in order to know what help to ask for, but walking away from the VCR I feel a much stronger sense of community, and gratitude knowing that I could call up any one of these people and ask for advice in the months and years to come. 

August 2023: Bird is the word — Jonah Hutchison reflects on his REU experience at the Virginia Coast Reserve

This past summer, as part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the University of Virginia’s Coastal Research Center in Oyster, Virginia, I contributed to long-term vegetation data collection in the Brownsville Preserve, where researchers and I are examining the effects of sea level rise on coastal forest ecosystems. When I wasn’t measuring trees and shrubs, repairing their tags, or identifying non-woody species in monitoring plots, I designed a project to describe shifts in species composition of birds across the forest to marsh gradient.

Despite the early mornings and the relentless mosquitoes, I loved to get out into the marsh before dawn and hear the birds wake up. Going from silence to hearing birds singing all around was worth it every survey. Because bird species are correlated with different vegetation types, we expected to see different birds in the three main regions of the preserve: forest, transition, and marsh. I found that there was a major difference in species composition across the gradient. In total, I detected 53 species, with most species having a preferred zone. For example, brown-headed nuthatches, which are cavity nesters, preferred the transition zone, likely because of the abundance of dead standing trees. This data will be a useful starting point for future bird projects in Brownsville.

June 2022: First PhD seedling, now in full bloom

Ezra Kottler successfully defended their PhD thesis, “Genotype by environment interactions of a high marsh foundation species affected by sea-level rise,” to great acclaim!

At the end of the summer, Ezra will move cross-country to begin a Smith Conservation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship entitled, “Restoration genomics of endangered vernal pool annuals: sourcing seeds through space and time to maximize adaptive variation” with mentors Nancy Emery and Jennifer Buck-Diaz.

Congrats, Ezra!

October 2021: Public engagement at LTER sites

Ezra Kottler tells us about how different LTER sites engage with their communities: https://lternet.edu/stories/public-engagement-at-lter-sites/

August 2021: Have you ever thought about what goes into planning a long-term experiment?

PhD candidate Ezra Kottler wrote an article for the LTER Network about it. Find out here.

March 2021: New TREE review from Ezra Kottler on range edge evolution

In the latest Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Ezra Kottler & coathors Nancy Emery (CU Boulder), Jason Sexton (UC Merced), Erin Dickman (Yosemite NPS) and Steven Franks (Fordham U) explore the role of gene flow in range edge evolution. The paper, "Draining the Swamping Hypothesis: Little Evidence that Gene Flow Reduces Fitness at Range Edges", evaluates support for the long-standing Genetic Swamping Hypothesis as an explanation for range limitation. The synthesis of experimental evidence shows that central-to-edge gene flow tends to have neutral or positive effects on fitness in edge populations. Therefore, adaptation at range limits may be better explained by the genetic consequences of isolation, rather than gene swamping. This conclusion has important implications for conservation & management of range edge populations as they are affected by both evolutionary processes & by climate change. Link to paper: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1clxtcZ3WqeEy (open access until 05/07/21).

March 2021: Justus Jobe’s debut paper published in Ecology

Marsh-forest ecotones are on the move due to sea level rise. We examined the migrating ecotone as a filter to species establishment by transplanting four plant species to the leading and trailing edges of the ecotone and protecting them from ungulate herbivory. The four species responded very differently to the biotic and abiotic filters of the ecotone! The invasive common reed Phragmites australis was the only species to be affected by ungulate herbivores, which reduced its survival on the leading edge of the ecotone. The herbivore was another introduced species, the sika deer, making this a novel interaction between two introduced species. In the absence of herbivory, P. australis grew more quickly in the low light and low salinity conditions of the leading edge of the ecotone (forest), as did a second grass, Panicum virgatum, whereas the shrub Iva frutescens grew better in the high light, high salinity conditions of the trailing edge of the ecotone (marsh). Overall, these results suggest that species are responding to different filters within the ecotone that will shape the composition of the plant community as the ecotone migrates across the landscape.

Species‐specific responses of a marsh‐forest ecotone plant community responding to climate change. Ecology https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3296

January 2021: New paper in TREE on hypoxia in coastal tropical marine ecosystems

In a new paper led by Andrew Altieri (University of Florida), , “Resilience of Tropical Ecosystems to Ocean Deoxygenation", we review the vulnerability and resilience of coastal tropical marine ecosystems to hypoxia, which is both a natural feature of these systems and increasing due to anthropogenic influences. Hypoxia can disrupt key mutualistic Interactions within each system, such as seagrass-lucinid clam and coral-zooxanthellae, which can amplify ecosystem impacts. As hypoxia is a natural feature of tropical systems, multiple stressors are identified as the key driver of accelerating impacts of hypoxia. Link to paper: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1cYs1cZ3Wn~40 (open access until 4/1/21).

MS Opportunity in coastal plant restoration - begin January 2021

The Gedan Lab at George Washington University (GWU) is recruiting a full-time MS student to study restoration of salinized coastal agricultural land with perennial grasses to support waterfowl. The study is funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). The experimental planting of six candidate species at two planting densities will take place in the spring of 2021. We hope that a Master's student can be involved in the project from the very beginning, which will require submitting an application to GWU's graduate program soon. The student will work with our partners in the USDA-NRCS, University of Maryland, and Harry Hughes Center for Agroecology. The position will involve field work to install and monitor the restoration experiment, laboratory work to process and analyze plant samples, coursework, data analysis, and thesis preparation.  

Qualified students will have coursework in ecology or environmental science and experience in field research and working with ecological data. Training will be provided in plant identification and ecological and analytical methods. The Gedan lab is an inclusive environment with people from diverse backgrounds. People of all races, religions, and genders are encouraged to apply. The application deadline is December 1, 2020. More information on GWU's graduate program can be found at https://biology.columbian.gwu.edu/ms-biology. If interested, please email Keryn Gedan at kgedan@gwu.edu with a CV and a description of your interests.

Application must be submitted by October 15, 2020. If interested, please contact kgedan@gwu.edu soon.

(Post date: Sept. 17, 2020)

PhD opportunity in plant community ecology and physiology - begin Fall 2021

The Gedan Lab at George Washington University is recruiting a full-time PhD student to research the response of maritime forest and coastal agricultural plant communities to saltwater intrusion. The research will take place at field sites on the Delmarva Peninsula: the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, Monie Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), and Delaware Bay NERR on the St. Jones River. The student will be part of National NSF-supported LTER and Critical Zone Network communities, which will provide numerous opportunities for cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary collaborations and networking.  The research project will involve investigating the response of trees and forbs to saltwater intrusion using sap flux and other physiological measurements.

Qualified students will have coursework in ecology or environmental science and experience in field research and working with ecological data. Experience with sensor data is preferred but not required. Training will be provided in plant identification and ecological and analytical methods. The Gedan lab is an inclusive environment with people with diverse backgrounds. People of all races, religions, and genders are encouraged to apply. The application deadline is December 1, 2020. More information on GWU's graduate program can be found at https://biology.columbian.gwu.edu/phd-biology. If interested, please email Keryn Gedan at kgedan@gwu.edu with a CV and relevant experience.

(Post date: Sept. 17, 2020)

February 2020: New paper out in Diversity

Ellen Neff, Jess MacGregor, and Keryn Gedan report on field and lab studies of short duration, or diel-cycling, hypoxia and predation on hooked mussels and eastern oysters. The study found a strong preference of blue crabs for hooked mussels over oysters that was greatly diminished by hypoxic conditions. In field experiments, there was no detectable effect of hypoxia duration on predation rates. The lack of effect in the field, relative to the lab, may be a result of compensatory feeding by predators in times of normoxic conditions, temporal refuges from hypoxia for predators, or the effect of a more diverse guild of predators occurring in the field than was tested in the lab environment. Read the full study: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/12/3/87

September 2019: Does the seed bank of the marsh-forest ecotone promote or hinder marsh migration?

PhD student Emily Kottler and Keryn Gedan did a seed bank study at Blackwater NWR to find out. They just published their findings in Annals of Botany. You thought the answer would be provided here?! No sir. Go ahead, click the link…click it! There is also a blog piece on Botany One for the abbreviated version.

May 2019: New paper in Nature Climate Change with Matt Kirwan: Sea-level driven land conversion and the formation of ghost forests

Read it here: https://rdcu.be/bEADC

May 2019: We published a new Paper in BioScience on saltwater intrusion

February 2019: Jobe and Qi awarded grants from the Washington Biologists Field Club

Congratulations to Justus Jobe and Man Qi on the support of their work from the Washington Biologists Field Club to support their summer field projects: “Understanding the role of herbivory in migrating marshes: Are ungulates facilitating invasive Phragmites australis establishment in transitioning coastal forest?” (Jobe) and “Marsh resilience during the early stages of transition into an open water pond” (Qi). Great job!

November 2018: New paper by Emily Kottler on epigenetic effects in Brassica rapa

Emily J. Kottler, Acer Van Wallendael, and Steven J. Franks, “Experimental Treatment with a Hypomethylating Agent Alters Life History Traits and Fitness in Brassica rapa,” Journal of Botany, vol. 2018, Article ID 7836845, 10 pages, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/7836845.

October 2018: CCAS Spotlight on the Gedan Lab

See what’s going on in the Gedan Lab in the recent coverage by the GW Columbian College of Arts and Sciences E-magazine.

March 2, 2018: Coverage in The Atlantic

Science reporter Virginia Gewin wrote a sweeping piece about saltwater intrusion in America's first farmlands that describes work by the Gedan Lab and UMD Agroecology Lab. Check out the story, "The Slow-Motion Catastrophe Threatening 350-Year-Old Farms," here.

February 2018: Research Award for Emily Kottler!

Congratulations to PhD student Emily Kottler on being awarded a research fellowship from the Washington Biologists' Field Club (WBFC) to support her summer research on Spartina patens landscape genetics. We are so excited to see the direction of this new research. Thank you to the WBFC for supporting student work and natural history research in our region!

December 2017: Getting the Seeds Ready for Action

By Jacquelyn Veatch

When samples of seeds are collected in the field and brought back to the lab, there is a lot of work to do to get them ready for cultivation and experiments. As a new undergraduate research assistant in the Gedan Lab, many of my hours at the lab bench are spent cleaning seeds and looking for seed viability.

No, “cleaning seeds” does not mean little seed baths with soap and a rubber ducky. The tall grasses that are taken from the marshes and end up at the lab bench in front of me have hundreds of seeds that need to be separated from their stems, leaves and other supporting structures. I do this by grinding the plants gently with the graded rubber shown on the red tray below to release the seeds. Next, I transfer the seeds and debris to the metal mesh plates to separate this mixture by size, collecting the seeds in brown paper bags.

This technique differs for each species of grass. For example, the Aster subulatus stick together, so once they are on the metal mesh plate, I use the cardboard box shown at left to push excess stems and leaves through the mesh, leaving the fluffy white seeds on the top.

After the seeds are cleaned, I weigh the entire sample and a sub-sample of 100 carefully separated seeds. This gives us an idea of how many clean seeds are in the sample and is a lot more efficient than counting all of the seeds, I would graduate before I would finish! The sample of 100 clean seeds is then taken to the microscope to check for seed viability. Using tweezers and a scalpel, I cut open each seed and record what I find. Below are a few examples of seeds I have been working on this past semester.

Three Echinochloa crus-galli seeds are shown in the leftmost image with the burr-like awn. The bottom Echinochloa crus-galli has not yet been cut open, the top left is empty, and the top right has a seed, meaning it is likely viable. The Aster subulatus seeds are too small to cut open; these seeds are wind dispersed. They love to float along the ventilation drafts in our lab while I am trying to count and weigh them (sending me leaping across the lab after them!). The rightmost image shows three Panicum virgatum seeds. At the bottom of this image is a Panicum virgatum before it has been cut open. The upper right seed appears to be viable. Looking closely at the upper left seed, a black structure inside the floret can be seen. This has not developed into a seed, so I would score this as unviable.

Recording my findings of the 100 seed samples, we have a pretty good understanding about how many seeds in the total sample will germinate, given the right conditions. Next steps for these seeds: to the greenhouse and the incubation chamber this spring!

Congratulations, Eduardo!

Un aplauso por postdoc Eduardo Fernández Pascual, for winning the prestigious Marie Curie COFUND – Clarín fellowship. He will return to the University of Oviedo in Asturias, Spain at the end of this year. We have loved having Eduardo in the Gedan Lab! We look forward to seeing the next chapter of his plant community ecology research, and for the chance to visit Eduardo in his home state.

Harlan Greenhouse feature in GW Today: marsh plants take the lede!

We are proud to be included in a GW Today article about the diverse research going on in GW's Harlan Greenhouse, which will be dedicated in honor of GW alum and botany major, Dr. Harlan, B.S. ’35, next week. Research by John Lill, Amy Zanne, Arnaud Martin, and the Gedan Lab was featured in the article. The Harlan greenhouse is located on the top floor of the SEH. It is flourishing under the care of greenhouse manager Rachel Klein and is open to students on Fridays from 12-3pm.

GW Today features student Lily Segalman and her SEA Semester

We're lucky to have a great volunteer in the lab this summer, rising GW senior Lily Segalman, who spent the last semester sailing the Pacific Seas. Hear her stories about sea sickness and microplastics in a GW Today story about her trip. After trading her lifejacket for marsh boots, Lily will keep working with the Gedan Lab in the field and lab this fall.

April 2017: Seeds of spring

By Maxwell Sall

As a new undergraduate research assistant in Professor Gedan’s lab as of the 2017 Spring semester, I have been spending my time not in the field, but in GW’s well-lit, shiny Science and Engineering Hall, working on various projects to transform samples collected during the last field season into qualitative and quantitative data.

Recently, my main focus has been on determining the relative viability of seeds collected last fall. While germinating planted seeds can take 3-4 weeks to determine the viability of grass species, we have been using Tetrazolium (TZ) testing, which can accurately predict the seed viability in a three-day procedure. First, a sample of each species is wrapped in damp paper towels, and soaked in a refrigerator overnight. Hydration initiates cellular respiration in the seeds, which will allow us to measure their viability. The next day, we cut the seeds in half, and then soak them overnight in a 1% tetrazolium chloride solution. If the seeds are viable, dehydrogenase enzyme activity will reduce the colorless tetrazolium solution to formazan red, leaving the seeds brightly stained.  

When we ran our first replicate of seeds through the TZ test, we learned specific features of each species’ seed morphology which helped us more effectively dissect and stain the second replicate of seeds. Panicum virgatum seeds, for example, are surrounded by a sheath that obscured the seed from absorbing the Tetrazolium solution. In our second replicate, we removed the seeds from the sheath, and observed an almost 20% vitality rate within our sample.

All of these species were extremely small, and their dissection required some seriously precise hand-eye coordination. The white endosperm of Sorghum halepense, for example does not stain, so when we first tested the seeds using a latitudinal cut, it seemed that none of the seeds were viable. Using a longitudinal cut on the second replicate to view the seeds’ embryo, we found that roughly 70% of the seeds were stained.

The percent viability of the species we tested varied greatly. Some species, such as Iva frutescens, showed 100% viability. Several species, including Baccharis hamilifolia showed a viability rate of approximately 10%. In our small sample, not a single Spartina cynosuroides seed showed signs of staining. We are currently studying the germination of these species, whose seeds we planted in the greenhouse at the end of January. Our results from the TZ testing will inform the relative germination rate that each species shows.

As it gets warmer outside and my midterms pass, I can’t help but look forward to going out into beautiful tidal wetlands this summer, to see how all of this data is collected, and how it plays a larger role in addressing the big research questions that Professor Gedan’s lab is tackling.

January 2017: New Year's is time to think thin: thin-layering

By Emily Kottler

Our lab studies the tidal marshes of the Chesapeake Bay. While we on the research end pursue an in depth understanding of long-term changes resulting from sea level rise, land managers are working on the front lines to preserve these treasured habitats. Wetlands are a refuge for a diversity of native wildlife, serving as nursery grounds for commercial fish and nesting sites for rare birds. These vibrant and productive natural systems are under threat due to accelerated sea level rise, which can drown the foundation species of grasses that root firmly into the sediment and build the marsh. These grasses prevent erosion and provide a much-needed buffer for waves and coastal storms.

The rising threat of sea level rise necessitates forward-thinking management strategies that move beyond the protection of current wetland area and work to prepare for the new marsh distributions. One such method is thin layer deposition, a technique that is being utilized at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on an ambitious scale: the first project of its size in the Chesapeake Bay.

Thin layer deposition is the practice of distributing a layer of dredged sediment on the marsh to raise its elevation. In time, tidal grasses grow through the added sediment (sometimes supplemented with restoration plantings), and a new marsh flat is established at a higher elevation. This type of restoration is more than just a short-term solution: it allows the dominant grasses to thrive, and they in turn will continue to build up the marsh’s elevation.

Similar projects have recently been enacted at wildlife refuges on the Gulf Coast and in New England, so it’s very exciting to see this kind of broad-scale wetland restoration happening in our proverbial backyard. At Blackwater the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, The Conservation Fund and the Audobon Society have come together to fund this project, and it was implemented using current sea level rise projections and research into marsh grass growth conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Researchers, engineers and land managers from different agencies have come together to make this conservation effort possible.

Thin layer deposition is not without risk. The force of the hoses used to deposit the sediment knocks over existing vegetation, and it will only recover if the sediment layer of a proper thickness (i.e. thin enough for the vegetation to grow through, but thick enough to sufficiently raise the vegetation above the sea water). Blackwater managers and restoration ecologists have done their best to mitigate this risk through pilot studies in smaller areas of the marsh, determining the right amount of sediment to add, where it will land with the application technique, and how it will settle and affect marsh plants.

We conduct field research at Blackwater NWR, and are looking forward to future endeavors there. If researchers and land managers work together to understand the problems posed by sea-level rise and put into place management strategies grounded in solid research, together we can preserve these unique and beneficial habitats.

Our work isn’t quite your typical day at the beach. First off, the ecosystems we’re studying are the marshes between the barrier island and the mainland, so we don’t really spend any time with our toes in the sand. Instead we spend our time suited up in muck boots, boating between tidal creeks, traipsing around the higher edges of the marsh, or wading through water and getting stuck in mud in the lower parts marsh. As part of our study, we’re collecting data on elevation, salinity, vegetation distribution, and taking soil samples. The work is dirty, smelly, and because we’re in the marsh, it can be really hot and buggy if there isn’t a breeze.

It isn’t glamorous. But, the small moments of the job make it worth it, beyond the obvious big-picture goals of developing research questions and collecting data. Seeing the world wake up as the sun rises over the water, a bald eagle taking off from it’s perch in the early morning, watching diamondback terrapins sun themselves on mud banks as we zip past in the boat, or the march of what seems like a million fiddler crabs as they scurry across the marsh beneath our feet. In these special moments I’m beyond lucky to experience this job because it’s beautiful. It’s also pretty fun most of the time, despite the hazards. Our lab group has running comedy routines about becoming the Saltsquatch, the marsh version of Sasquatch and the gamble of jumping off the boat onto marsh of questionable firmness (best case scenario being “terra firma", worst case being “soup”). This past month, we honed our skills in “the wetland Olympics”: the main event was the quadrat throw: points awarded for height, distance, rotations and for “sticking the landing,” or whether or not the quadrat pole stand lands standing straight up in the ground.

Between the heat, the bugs, the joking around, and getting the job done, I enjoy thinking about the complexities of our system; a system that has for centuries has been neglected and overlooked by society as just a breeding ground for mosquitoes and used as a dumping ground for sewage and debris. For centuries these systems have provided a variety of ecosystem services for society, such as nutrient removal, water filtration, protection from storms, and provide vital habitat for many species that are commercially harvest. As a result of rising mean global temperatures, these systems are immediately threatened by sea level rise. While it is currently believed that wetland ecosystems can survive increases in mean sea level by moving inland, the issue is complicated by the fact that development along coastlines, and the current rapid rate of sea level rise, would prevent this natural behavior.

NOLA-bound

We are going to New Orleans in December for the Restore America's Estuaries & The Coastal Society Summit. Keryn has organized a session, “Sea level rise, marsh migration, and coastal land conversion” and Kathryn will present a poster on her barrier island work.

New Greenhouse

GW has a beautiful new research greenhouse located on the 8th floor of the Science and Engineering Hall. Plants and seeds are being collected. Photos coming soon.