Connecting Landscape-Applied Nutrients to Widespread Coastal Wetland Invasion Across the Laurentian Great Lakes
Abstract
The Laurentian Great Lakes, located at the border between the U.S. and Canada, are one of the world's largest freshwater resources--and among its most invaded. Ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, and livelihoods have been disrupted due to the compounding effects of ecologically-significant invasive species. The coastline of the Great Lakes has played host to a series of these invaders; indeed coastal wetlands have experienced a second wave of invasion in recent decades as non-native Phragmites australis displace diverse native communities or even invade stands of either non-native or hybrid Typha . These invasive plants thrive in high-nutrient conditions, outcompeting native plant species adapted to nutrient scarcity, and quickly take advantage of disturbances caused by Great Lakes water level fluctuations. Invasive species then alter nutrient and carbon cycling within these wetlands, with cascading effects from local up through basin scales.
Here we provide an overview of a multi-institutional, transdisciplinary effort involving remote sensing, hydrology, and ecology teams to better understand the distribution, drivers, and consequences of plant invasions in coastal wetlands across the Great Lakes Basin. We link unique basin-wide 30 m maps of land use, distinguishing dominant wetland plant species via remote sensing products and algorithms, with similarly-scaled nutrient source maps, integrated surface and groundwater hydrologic modeling, nutrient transport modeling, and coastal wetland community-ecosystem modeling. Our integrated models and observations provide a comprehensive view of not just the extent of invasion, but also of the underlying conditions and mechanisms that promote invasion success. Furthermore, our ecosystem modeling points us to areas prone to future invasion as well as those where conservation and management measures are more likely to succeed. One key finding is that the legacies of both historical land use and prior plant invasions dictate much of the trajectories of wetland plant communities, necessitating an integrated land-to-water management approach. Yet even in heavily invaded areas the potential for successful integrated management exists, allowing both preservation and restoration of ecosystem services provided by Great Lakes coastal wetlands.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMB015...09K
- Keywords:
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- 0414 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1833 Hydroclimatology;
- HYDROLOGY