Jennifer Bowen

Sponsor: NSF

Salt marshes provide an important line of defense against nutrient pollution by intercepting watershed nitrogen before it enters estuaries. This nitrogen can enhance the growth of marsh plants, however some forms of nitrogen can also be used by microbes, who use it to decompose organic matter in low-oxygen sediments. Understanding which of these two outcomes is most likely to occur is important because, if marsh plants take up that nitrogen and grow more robustly, this will increase salt marsh resilience to sea-level rise. On the other hand, if microbes use that nitrogen for respiration, it could accelerate loss of organic matter, thereby decreasing resilience. This project combines field and greenhouse experiments to tease apart the relative importance of different N forms on the plant and microbial communities that ultimately dictate salt marsh resilience.