Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Data Set Details

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GCE-LTER Data Set Summary

Accession:

MSH-GCED-2511

Research Theme:

Marsh Ecology (Directed Study)

Contributor:

Steven C. Pennings

Title:

Marsh vegetation and soil survey at Marsh Landing, Sapelo Island GA from July 1999.

Abstract:

To document edaphic and vegetation patterns in a Georgia marsh, I sampled seven vegetation "zones" at Marsh Landing on Sapelo Island in July, 1999. Vegetation zones were delineated based on vegetation composition. I located 8 transects running from the Juncus zone in the high marsh down into the short S. alterniflora zone. The tall Spartina zone was not sampled. I sampled a single quadrat (0.25 m x 0.25 m) in each vegetation zone along each transect, for a total of 56 plots. I measured canopy height with a meter stick. I harvested aboveground biomass within each quadrat, sorted it to species, dried and weighed it. I measured soil water content gravimetrically by drying surface (4 cm deep) soil cores and expressing results as (water mass)/(mass of wet core). I determined porewater salinity by rehydrating dried soil cores with a known volume of deionized water, measuring the salinity of the supernatant after 48 h, and back-calculating to the volume of water originally present. I measured soil organic content as loss on ignition of dried soil cores at 450oC for 12 h. I measured relative elevation of each vegetation zone with a theodolite, with the elevation of the lowest zone arbitrarily set to zero. The resulting dataset describes how plant species composition, richness, height and biomass varies as a function of abiotic conditions in the upper part of a Georgia marsh.

DOI:

10.6073/pasta/591b7c5c4aa8a8e37159f930c3a6a734

Key Words:

biomass, canopy cover, elevation, Marsh Landing, plant biomass, soil organic matter, soil water content, Spartina alterniflora, species richness

LTER Core Area:

Primary Production

Research Themes:

Marsh Ecology, Plant Ecology

Study Period:

20-Jan-1999 to 20-Jan-1999

Study Sites:

ML -- Marsh Landing, Sapelo Island, Georgia, USA

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Downloads:

Data Table: MSH-GCED-2511 (Main data table for data set MSH-GCED-2511, 56 records)

Access: Public (released 11-Nov-2025)

Metadata: Text (ESA FLED), XML (Ecological Metadata Language)

Data Formats: Spreadsheet (CSV) [3.95kb], Text File [3.41kb], MATLAB (GCE Toolbox) [18.47kb], MATLAB (Variables) [18.71kb], Text Report [16.48kb]

Column List:(hide)

Column	Name	Units	Type	Description
1	Day	D	integer	Day of month when sampling was done
2	Month	M	integer	Month when sampling was done
3	Year	YYYY	integer	Year when sampling was done
4	Vegetation	none	string	Dominant vegetation type
5	Soil_water_proportion	none	floating-point	Mass of water divided by mass of wet soil
6	Porewater_salinity_PSU	PSU	floating-point	Salinity of porewater
7	Elevation_m	meters	floating-point	Elevation of plot relative to average of lowest vegetation type
8	Species_richness	none	integer	Number of species in 0.25 x 0.25 m quadrat
9	Canopy_height_cm	centimeters	floating-point	Height of canopy
10	Plant_mass_quadrat	grams	floating-point	Dry mass of live vegetation in 0.25 x 0.25 m quadrat
11	Soil_organic_content_percent	%	floating-point	Organic matter as a percentage of total soil dry mass

Statistics:

Generate script code to retrieve data tables for analysis in: MATLAB, R, SAS, SPSS

Citation:

Pennings, Steven C. 2025. Marsh vegetation and soil survey at Marsh Landing, Sapelo Island GA from July 1999. Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Project, University of Georgia, Long Term Ecological Research Network. http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/591b7c5c4aa8a8e37159f930c3a6a734

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