Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Connectivity between adjacent ecosystems is thought to increase ecosystem resilience and function. In coastal ecosystems, the exchange of sediment and nutrients between mudflats and marshes is important for the long‐term dynamics of both systems. Mudflat morphodynamics are driven by the interaction of waves and sediment erodibility, which is a function of sediment type and the presence of biostabilizers such as microphytobenthos. However, there is a poor understanding about how the evolution of mudflats may impact the morphodynamics and function of adjacent salt marshes. Here, we use a Coastal Landscape Transect model connecting mudflats and marshes to investigate how microphytobenthos influence the coupled behavior of mudflats and marshes, and how that coupled behavior influences carbon storage. We find that biofilms reduce the connectivity between mudflats and marshes by reducing erodibility and sediment exchange. Reduced connectivity associated with microphytobenthos leads to a shallower mudflat and more carbon stored in the mudflat sediments, which in turn cascades to a higher combined marsh and mudflat carbon stock. Furthermore, our results highlight the role of connectivity across the coastal landscape and suggest that biostabilization leads to relatively small changes in morphodynamics but relatively large changes in ecosystem function.
DOI: 10.1029/2024jg008500
Authors: K. Valentine, M. L. Kirwan
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Awards: COASTAL WETLAND CARBON PROCESSES IN A WARMER CLIMATE, LTER: Climate drivers, dynamics, and consequences of ecosystem state change in coastal barrier systems, COASTAL TERRESTRIAL INTERFACE CARBON CYCLING IN A WARMER CLIMATE, Collaborative Research: Network Cluster: The Coastal Critical Zone: Processes that transform landscapes and fluxes between land and sea, CAREER: Eco-geomorphic response of coastal carbon to accelerated sea level rise, COASTAL WETLAND CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN A WARMER CLIMATE, G6671297155
OpenAlex ID: W4408532030