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NSF PR 00-33 - May 16, 2000
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NSF Awards $4.2 Million Grants to Three Coastal Sites
for Long-Term Ecological Research
Estuaries and coastal landscapes; barrier islands
and marshes; giant kelp forests. They're the subject
of three new Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)
sites recently awarded funding by the National Science
Foundation (NSF). With the addition of the Florida
Coastal Everglades LTER site, the Georgia Coastal
Ecosystem LTER site, and the Santa Barbara Coastal
LTER site, there are now 24 NSF-funded LTER sites
in North America and Antarctica. The three newest
sites each will receive approximately $700,000 per
year for the next six years, for a total of about
$4.2 million each.
Florida Coastal Everglades LTER
Research at the Florida Coastal Everglades site will
look at how cultural eutrophication--nutrient enrichment
of an ecosystem by human influences--has affected
Everglades National Park. "Estuaries and coastal landscapes
experience a range of stresses, both natural and man-induced,"
explains Scott Collins, director of NSF's LTER program.
"Among these, cultural eutrophication affects most
U.S. coastal ecosystems." In the new Florida Coastal
Everglades LTER site, scientists will investigate
how variability in regional climate, freshwater inputs,
and disturbances affect this ecosystem. The Everglades
is the focus of the largest watershed restoration
effort ever implemented, says Collins, and this restoration
will dramatically change the timing and amount of
freshwater entering the system.
Georgia Coastal Ecosystem LTER
This study site, a barrier island and marsh complex,
is located on the central Georgia coast near Sapelo
Island and the Altamaha River, one of the largest
and least developed rivers on the U.S. East Coast.
Scientists at this LTER site will investigate the
links between local and distant upland areas, and
how water flow from inland rivers to the coastal zone
affects these areas. The study area includes the Altamaha
River estuary, the lagoonal estuaries bordering the
mainland and Sapelo Island, and tidal marshes throughout
the coastal area. Says Phil Taylor, director of NSF's
biological oceanography program, which cofunded the
three new coastal LTER sites, "The impacts of human
activities are an important component of the long-term
variation researchers will likely find at this site."
The coastline of Georgia is currently among the least
developed in the U.S., but is expected to develop
rapidly over the next few decades, "making this an
ideal time," says Taylor, "to get a better idea of
how this ecosystem works."
Santa Barbara Coastal LTER
Research at the Santa Barbara Coastal LTER site will
focus on giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) forests,
which are important to the ecology and economy of
coastal areas on the west coasts of North and South
America. Kelp forests occur on shallow coastal reefs,
and are affected in both positive and negative ways
by land and the open ocean, through water carrying
sediment, nutrients, and pollutants. The effects of
terrestrial runoff, in particular, on kelp forests
in the Santa Barbara Channel can be large, according
to scientists affiliated with this LTER site. They
will work to determine patterns of runoff entering
the channel, in an effort to find out how runoff affects
the long-term population dynamics of key kelp-forest
species, and the ultimate survival of the kelp forest
itself.
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