SGER: Examining the Effects of Hurricane Ivan in Coastal Alabama and Northwestern Florida: A Positive Impact on Shallow Coastal Lagoons?

SGER：检查飓风伊万对阿拉巴马州沿海和佛罗里达州西北部的影响：对浅海沿海泻湖有积极影响吗？

• 批准号: 0508607
• 负责人: Just Cebrian
• 金额: $ 4.02万
• 依托单位: Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-02-15 至 2007-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0508607&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Examining; Effects; Hurricane; Ivan

Coastal lagoons are key components of land-ocean fringe ecosystems in view of their ubiquity and the important ecological roles they play, such as the provision of food and shelter for many organisms, the filtration of land-derived nutrients and the prevention of shoreline erosion. On September 16th 2004, Hurricane Ivan, a category 3 storm, landed on the NorthWestern Floridian Peninsula around Pensacola Bay. The storm generated substantial damage, including the loss of human lives and much destruction of houses, roads and water and electrical facilities. Over the past four years, the PIs have been studying extensively the ecology of three coastal lagoons located in the area most affected by the Hurricane. Hence, the passage of the Hurricane through the PIs study sites, in conjunction with the pre-hurricane extensive date set compiled for the sites, sets up an unprecedented natural experiment to examine the impacts of hurricanes on the ecology of these important coastal environments. Indeed, little is known as to how hurricanes may affect coastal lagoons and the important services they offer to the ecosystem, in contrast with the several existing studies of hurricane impacts on coral reefs, estuaries and marsh or mangrove communities.The focus on coastal lagoons is not the only novel aspect of this proposal. The PIs also expect that Hurricane Ivan will have a rather positive effect on the ecological attributes of coastal lagoons, which would counter the often negative effects that have been reported for estuaries, coral reefs and marsh/mangrove communities. The two arguments invoked to expect positive effects on coastal lagoons are as follows. First, coastal lagoons, in view of their convoluted and protected morphology, frequently have a restricted fetch (i.e. area of open water through which the wind can build up shear on the bottom). Hence, the intensity of shear imposed by the Hurricane on the benthic plants (seagrasses and macroalgae) of a lagoon would be inherently limited by the lagoon morphology and, likely, rather entail a positive effect by pruning old parts and tissues and rejuvenating the plants. Second, coastal lagoons have generally low to moderate flushing rates due to the absence of riverine inputs (as it happens, for instance, in estuaries) and the presence of a rather constrained opening into coastal waters. Thus, the nutrients imported into coastal lagoons from surrounding land as storm-driven flooding recedes would remain in the lagoons long enough for efficient uptake by benthic vegetation. The growth of benthic plants in coastal lagoons is often limited by nutrient availability and, thus, increased nutrient loading in combination with ample opportunity for uptake would represent another positive effect of Hurricane Ivan on those plants. Since benthic plants are the dominant producers in coastal lagoons and key players in the ecology of those environments, we hypothesize that Hurricane Ivan, through stimulating the growth and health of benthic plants, will also promote the ecological attributes of coastal lagoons. In particular the PIs hypothesize that, after the passage of Hurricane Ivan, the coastal lagoons studied will have increased primary production, offer higher and enhanced levels of shelter to organisms (and thus have higher levels of macrofauna in the benthic meadows) and filter and store larger quantities of land-derived nutrients.The extensive baseline of data obtained for the three lagoons studied over the past four years allows the PIs to unequivocally test their hypotheses by simply comparing the pre-hurricane baseline with corresponding measurements obtained after the Hurricane. The research will provide training opportunities for two graduate students. The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and the EPA-founded Alabama Center for Estuarine Studies are also supporting this project.

鉴于它们的普遍性和它们发挥的重要生态作用，例如为许多生物提供食物和庇护所，土地衍生的营养素的过滤以及预防海岸线侵蚀的过滤，沿海泻湖是陆地边缘生态系统的关键组成部分。 2004年9月16日，伊万（Ivan）飓风是3类风暴，降落在彭萨科拉湾（Pensacola Bay）西北部的佛罗里达半岛。风暴造成了重大破坏，包括丧失人类的生命以及对房屋，道路，水和电气设施的大量破坏。在过去的四年中，PI一直在广泛研究位于飓风影响最大的地区的三个沿海泻湖的生态。 因此，飓风通过PIS研究地点的通过，并结合了为这些地点编译的赫里奇烷前广泛日期集，设置了一个前所未有的自然实验，以检查飓风对这些重要沿海环境的生态的影响。的确，与对飓风对珊瑚礁，河口，沼泽或红树林社区的几项现有研究相比，飓风可能如何影响飓风如何影响沿海泻湖及其为生态系统提供的重要服务。这不是该提议的唯一新颖方面。 PI还期望伊万飓风对沿海泻湖的生态属性具有相当积极的影响，这将对河口，珊瑚礁和沼泽/沼泽社区的经常负面影响应对。援引的两个论点期望对沿海泻湖的积极影响如下。 首先，鉴于其复杂和受保护的形态，沿海泻湖经常受到限制的提取（即开风的开放水域可以在底部堆积剪切）。因此，飓风对泻湖的底栖植物（海草和大藻）施加的剪切强度将受到固有的泻湖形态的限制，并且很可能通过修剪旧零件和组织和重新汇率的植物而产生积极作用。其次，由于河流投入的缺乏（例如，在河口中，沿海泻湖通常低至中等的冲洗率），并且在沿海水域中存在相当有限的开口。因此，由于暴风雨驱动的洪水退缩将在泻湖中剩下的时间足够长的时间，以便通过底栖植被有效吸收，因此从周围土地上进口的营养成分。沿海泻湖中底栖植物的生长通常受到养分利用率的限制，因此，养分量增加与充足的吸收机会相结合，将代表伊万飓风对这些植物的另一种积极作用。由于底栖植物是沿海泻湖中的主要生产国，也是这些环境生态学的主要参与者，因此我们假设伊万飓风通过刺激底栖植物的生长和健康，也将促进沿海泻湖的生态属性。 PI尤其假设，在伊万飓风之后，所研究的沿海泻湖将增加初级产量，为生物提供更高和增强的庇护所水平（从而在底栖草地中具有较高水平的大型大型），然后过滤和储存。在过去四年中研究的三个泻湖获得的数据基线的广泛基线允许PIS通过简单地比较夏尔里卡前基线与飓风后获得的相应测量值来明确检验其假设。 该研究将为两名研究生提供培训机会。 密西西比州阿拉巴马州海洋赠款财团和EPA创建的阿拉巴马州河口研究中心也支持该项目。