Obiettivo
To understand the mechanisms behind the rapid extension of dominant plant species as an indicator of disturbance by pollution (eutrophication) of salt marsh ecosystems.
Salt marshes are wetland ecosystems at the edge of land and sea. The soil is built from clay, including organic matter, deposited by tidal water movements. The decay of plants and the deposited organic matter results in mineralization and hence an increase in plant available nutrients. Thus succession and ecosystem dynamics strongly link up with natural processes like frequency and duration of inundation, rates of sedimentation and nutrient accumulation, and feature characteristic patterns of zonation of different plant communities related to their biogeochemical cycles. During the last decades anthropogenic eutrophication took place by an increased amount of suspended organic matter and from atmospheric deposition. The combined effects of natural and anthropogenic eutrophication might have disturbed the biogeochemical cycles to such an extent that the whole salt marsh ecosystem has dramatically changed resulting in the dominance of a few nitrophilous plant species in all sections of salt marsh zonation with a subsequent decrease in biodiversity both at the level of species and plant communities. The species complex of Elymus athericus/Elymus repens and their hybrid is regarded to be a good indicator for this disturbance.
The project envisages to better understand the mechanisms behind the eutrophication by the increase of knowledge about of biogeochemical cycles at the transition zone between land and sea. The amounts of organic matter and nutrients stored in different compartments of the salt marsh ecosystem and the fluxes between these compartments will be quantified. The fluxes towards and out of the system will be estimated. The methods involved will include work in the field in the Wadden Sea and in Portugal with supposed higher fluxes, and under controlled conditions in mesocosms, glass house and laboratory. Advanced techniques using 210Pb isotope for measurements of sedimentation rates and 15N/14N isotopes for measurements of fluxes will be used. The results enable the prediction of the effects on salt marsh ecosystems of nutrient input by sediments as a result of expected sea level rise, of an envisaged reduction in the nutrient input from atmospheric deposition and of nutrients dissolved in inundation water, and of the impact of heavy metals or management practices like grazing and cutting.
Campo scientifico (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifica i progetti con EuroSciVoc, una tassonomia multilingue dei campi scientifici, attraverso un processo semi-automatico basato su tecniche NLP.
CORDIS classifica i progetti con EuroSciVoc, una tassonomia multilingue dei campi scientifici, attraverso un processo semi-automatico basato su tecniche NLP.
- scienze naturaliscienze della terra e scienze ambientali connessegeologiasedimentologia
- ingegneria e tecnologiaingegneria dei materiali
- scienze naturaliscienze della terra e scienze ambientali connessescienze ambientaliinquinamento
- scienze naturaliscienze biologicheecologiaecosistemi
- scienze socialieconomia e commercioeconomia e gestione aziendale
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Argomento(i)
Invito a presentare proposte
Data not availableMeccanismo di finanziamento
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinatore
9750 AA Haren
Paesi Bassi