SPRING 2015 SOUND UPDATE NewsletteR OF THE LONG ISLAND SOUND STUDY Experts Meet to Discuss Tidal Wetland Loss CONTENTS By Victoria O’Neill 1 Experts Meet Tidal wetlands, specifically salt marshes, are composed to Discuss Tidal of waving green fields of smooth cordgrass (Spartina Wetland Loss alterniflora) and saltmeadow cordgrass (Spartina patens), and can be found throughout Long Island Sound in Amy Mandelbaum Amy 2 Topic 1: protected bays and harbors. These wetland habitats serve Submergence as the interface between the marine and the terrestrial environments, providing buffers to storm surges, filtering 3 Topic 2: the water of pollutants to improve water quality, and serving as spawning, nursery, and feeding grounds for Ecological fish, invertebrates, waterfowl, and wading birds. Tidal Indicators of wetland ecosystem benefits were not fully understood or Wetland Change appreciated until the mid-twentieth century, and until this time, suffered from years of dredging and filling related to 4 Topic 3: Wetland land and port development. Elevation By the 1970s, legislation was initiated in New EXPERTS DISCUss TIDAL WETLAND loss Changes York and Connecticut to protect tidal wetlands from during a breakout session. destruction. Despite these protections, in 1999, New vegetation dieback, marsh modelling efforts, ecological 5 Topic 4: Marsh York State Department of Environmental Conservation indicators, surface elevation tables, trends analyses, Migration (NYSDEC) and Connecticut Department of Energy and marine transgression, and innovative restoration and Environmental Protection (CTDEEP) noted consistent monitoring efforts. During breakout sessions, attendees and continued wetland loss. To bring together experts identified the factors that cause marsh loss and changes 6 Topic 5: Tidal to investigate this phenomenon, the Long Island Sound and how these factors impact marsh health. Attendees Wetlands Trends Study (LISS) Management Committee funded a Long also identified data gaps surrounding marsh loss and and Conditions Island Sound Tidal Wetland Loss Workshop in 2003. created a new set of research, monitoring, restoration, Assessment The workshop determined that the causative factors of and management recommendations for Long Island marsh loss were largely unknown and that more research, Sound and the region. These recommendations have 8 Update of the monitoring, restoration, and management were needed. been summarized into official workshop proceedings Comprehensive Another major recommendation of the 2003 workshop and are also incorporated into Implementation Actions Conservation was to reconvene for a follow-up workshop at a later in the revised version of the LISS Comprehensive & Management date to discuss recent developments in the study of Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP). The wetland loss. On October 22-23, 2014, approximately 2014 workshop proceedings and presentations, along Plan 70 professionals in tidal wetland research, monitoring, with other workshop materials, are posted on the LISS restoration, and management came together for the 2014 website: http://longislandsoundstudy.net/issues-actions/ Long Island Sound Tidal Wetlands Loss Workshop, held habitat-quality/2014-lis-twl-wksp. Sound Update at Danfords Hotel and Marina in Port Jefferson, NY. This newsletter highlights the topic presentations provides readers The primary goal of the 2014 workshop was to have an that were included in the 2014 workshop. The articles with news about engaging learning experience and discussion among are intended to serve as a summary of the workshop the Sound and the leading marsh managers, researchers, practitioners, and presentations, not as a synthesis of the research and Long Island Sound regulators regarding tidal wetland loss and change in Long monitoring conducted. Study. Island Sound and the region over the last decade. Find the The 2014 workshop was organized into theme topic —O’Neill is the New York Long Island Long Island presentations and breakout sessions. Presenters at the Sound Study Habitat Restoration Sound Study workshop updated attendees on recent projects occurring Coordinator at NYSDEC on Facebook in and around Long Island Sound and the region that focused on key theme topics, such as submergence, sudden 1 SPRING 2015 | WWW.LONGISLANDSOUNDSTUDY.NET Topic 1: Submergence Changes Since the Late 1800s Wetland Loss in Long Island Sound: The Role of Nitrogen By Ron Rozsa By Troy Hill This session addressed evidence of submergence This session addressed tidal gathering data to answer critical questions: in western Long Island Sound. Submergence is the wetland loss in Long Island Are nitrogen concentrations in submerging multi-decadal gradual conversion of tall smooth cordgrass Sound and nitrogen’s role in the marshes at levels that might trigger collapse? (Spartina alterniflora) in the low marsh to mudflat. To the west process. Human activities release large Are the mechanisms of nitrogen-induced of New Haven Harbor, on the north and south shores of Long amounts of nitrogen to downstream coastal loss, such as reduced roots or unstable Island Sound, the low marsh zone of tidal wetlands is converting environments, and Long Island Sound is peat, accumulation of partially decayed to intertidal flats over the course of two to three decades. The no exception. Nitrogen pollution has broad vegetation or organic matter, found in dominant plant in this zone is smooth cordgrass, a grass with a environmental impacts, stemming from submerging wetlands? And are the spatial height often exceeding two meters in western Long Island Sound. nitrogen’s role as a key ingredient for plant patterns and time trends of vegetation loss Smooth cordgrass experiences a gradual stunting and reduction in growth. Concern about nitrogen in coastal consistent with those caused by nitrogen? ecosystems was initially driven by the desire Some of these questions require to prevent algal blooms and the oxygen- fieldwork, but for others, there is ample data starved conditions created when those algae already available, waiting for analysis. In decay. But the influence of nitrogen extends these cases, reducing barriers to data access Ron Rozsa Ron to salt marsh plants, leading to recent efforts and analysis should be a priority. to determine the impacts that nitrogen has Data will be important to resolving the on the intertidal grasslands fringing our nitrogen question, but real advances in our coastline. understanding of coastal ecosystems require There is concern that nitrogen causes synthesis and conceptual work. We need to belowground changes that lead to marsh understand why rigorous research projects submergence. The logic is clear: plant roots come to disparate conclusions about the mainly serve to gather nutrients from the effects of nitrogen on wetland stability. environment. If nitrogen is abundant, We also need a better understanding of there may be less need for plants to build how wetlands respond to combinations of STUNTED AND DIFFUSED smooth cordgrass at the nutrient-scavenging roots. On an ecosystem stressors, such as reduced sediment supply, Fivemile River, Darien, CT. At this location, the substrate scale, fewer plant roots can cause unstable abundant nutrients, and rising sea levels. is a thin layer of marsh peat over estuarine mud. Today, peat and wetlands that may erode more the peat is absent and the underlying mud forms the easily or be less resilient to sea level rise. —Hill is a doctoral candidate at substrate of the intertidal flat. Inset photograph shows the Yale School of Forestry and the characteristic leaf tip of stressed smooth cordgrass at This intuitive sequence has been observed submerging sites. in Massachusetts, but elsewhere in New Environmental Studies England, and in Long Island Sound in density until the low marsh is devoid of any emergent vegetation. particular, root growth and marsh stability As stunting progresses, the canopy height remains constant and do not seem to be a simple function of the leaf tips show evidence of stress, a condition called ‘burn nutrients. necrosis’ by plant pathologists. Understanding the role of nitrogen in To quantify the wetland change, the Coastal Management wetland stability is partially a question of Program of CTDEEP received funds from LISS to contract with the National Wetland Inventory program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The USFWS mapped vegetation Troy Hill Troy changes through photointerpretation of aerial photography from 1974 to 2004 at six embayments in western Long Island Sound. At all locations, the vegetation analysis shows gains in intertidal flat at the expense of low marsh habitat. Therefore, this analysis provides evidence that submergence is occurring in these areas. The cause of submergence continues to baffle wetland scientists. While low marsh habitat is declining, the increases of intertidal flat, a highly significant estuarine habitat providing numerous ecological services, offsets historic human-caused loss of flats from activities such as dredging and placement of fill. BELOW THE SURFACE, salt marsh peat is often a dense mat of roots and rhizomes, as shown in this sediment core. With fewer roots to hold the peat together, marshes may erode more easily. —Rozsa is retired from CTDEEP 2 Topic 2: Ecological Indicators of Wetland Change Sudden Vegetation Dieback Wildlife and Plants By Roman Zajac, PhD By Roman Zajac, PhD This session addressed Connecticut as well as on Long Island. The session addressed how salt marsh changes affect vegetation