Sapelo Research Application Form
Research Application ID: GCE-90-2018 (submitted: 04/25/2018, status: approved)
Provide a brief title for web display
Effects of grazed creeks on blue carbon stocks
Investigator Information
On Island Sponsor: GCE SINERR UGAMI GADNR
| Principal Investigator: | Christine Angelini | ||
| Home Institution: | University of Florida | ||
| Award Information: | UF Internal Seed grant, $85,000 | ||
| Mailing Address: | Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences | Phone Number: | |
| University of Florida | E-mail Address: | christine.angelini@essie.ufl.edu | |
| Gainesville, Florida 32611 | |||
| Co-investigators: | Sinead M. Crotty (University of Florida) | ||
Briefly describe the project goals and methodology
In this project, we seek to quantify how the presence of Sesarma-grazed tidal creeks may be influencing plant and soil carbon stock to evaluate how they may be influencing the blue carbon sequestration potential of salt marshes. To achieve this goal, we aim to conduct a cordgrass transplant experiment at four replicate sites (pairs of grazed and ungrazed creeks) in which we manipulate Sesarma access to cordgrass using hardware cloth tubes (1.5cm mesh wrapped around 10cm diameter cordgrass transplants to a depth of 15cm; 32 transplant per site, 128 transplants overall), and collect and process soil cores (32 cores per site, distributed across the tidal creek edge to marsh platform, 128 cores overall, each 7cm diameter by 10cm deep) for both organic and inorganic C quantification as well as for soil dating to evaluate rates of soil accretion and erosion across the marsh (this will only be done for a subset of cores).
Where will the project be located?
see Google Earth .kmz file attached
How will you provide GPS coordinates for study sites?
I will provide a GIS file describing my study sites (ArcGIS shapefile, Google Earth KML/KMZ)
What are the expected start and end dates of the project?
Start Date: 05/15/2018 End Date: 10/30/2018
How many people will access the site and at what frequency?
We will visit each site for 3 days in May, and then one day monthly from June through October.
Keywords that describe your project
What equipment will be deployed in the field?
hardware cloth cages will be placed around cordgrass transplants from May through October
Will plants or animals be collected as part of this study?
Cordgrass above and below ground biomass will be harvested in October from the transplant study
What are the likely impacts of the project on the site?
Minimal impacts to the site from monitoring. We will be removing 32 soil cores (7cm diameter by 10cm depth) and 32 transplant cores at each site (10cm diameter by 15cm depth) from each site. These cores will be distributed across 8 zones spanning the tidal creek to the marsh platform so the impact will be broadly distributed.
Will the project design include boardwalks? If not, explain why not.
No it will not as we will not be visiting the sites that frequently.
How long will impacts persist after the research is concluded?
We anticipate that the core holes will close up with sediment and organic matter within 6 to 12 months and that the effect of trampling to access the sites will not be noticeable after 6 months.
Study Area Map:
Files attached to this application
GCE-90-2018_Maps_Area_1_Angelini.kmz (Compressed KML file, 0.87 kb, submitted 05/02/2018)
GCE-90-2018_Maps_Area_2_Angelini.kmz (Compressed KML file, 0.77 kb, submitted 05/02/2018)
GCE-90-2018_Maps_Area_3_Angelini.kmz (Compressed KML file, 0.72 kb, submitted 05/02/2018)
GCE-90-2018_Maps_Area_4_Angelini.kmz (Compressed KML file, 0.76 kb, submitted 05/02/2018)
