| Salt marshes are located at the critical boundary between land and ocean, and are therefore especially vulnerable to sea level rise (SLR). Resilience of a marsh to SLR depends on the accretion of both organic and inorganic material in marsh soils. We evaluated controls on accretion to better understand marsh vulnerability to SLR, and potential changes to ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, in response to climate change. We measured marsh-atmosphere carbon exchange and sediment deposition in Plum Island, Massachusetts for two years at twelve locations throughout the marsh to capture ecosystem heterogeneity. Gross primary production, respiration, and net ecosystem production were modeled at each location as functions of temperature, photosynthetically active radiation, and flooding depth and then spatially scaled up to the overall area of the marsh. We found that a shift from high-elevation marsh to low-elevation marsh will increase carbon storage in marshes of Plum Island. |
