Dr. Julia Cherry - Wetland Ecology Lab

Congratulations to Emily Fromenthal! She graduated with her M.S. in Biological Sciences on Saturday.

Congratulations to Emily Fromenthal, who successfully defended her thesis on insect communities in natural and constructed marshes today!

Our new paper examining marsh surface elevation and accretion along an elevation gradient at Grand Bay NERR was recently published in Wetland Ecology and Management. Check it out!

Trends in surface elevation and accretion in a retrograding delta in coastal Mississippi, USA from 2012–2016 - Wetlands Ecology and Management The Grand Bay estuary is in the north-central Gulf of Mexico and lacks riverine sediment input for marsh elevation maintenance. This study quantified trends in surface elevation change and accretion along an elevation gradient within the estuary. Elevation change rates were compared to short (13.71....

Congratulations to Jake Dybiec on being selected for the new class of NOAA’s Margaret A. Davidson Graduate Fellows. As part of the Fellowship, he will conduct wetland research at the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.
https://coast.noaa.gov/data/docs/nerrs/davidson-fellows-2022-2024.pdf

The crew is in Michigan to present at the Joint Aquatic Sciences meeting this week.

Congrats to Emily Fromenthal on her poster presentation at today’s Biology Graduate Student Symposium. Glad Jake and Shelby were there to support!

Congrats to Jake Dybiec for winning the best oral presentation award at the 2022 Mississippi Water Resources Conference in Starkville, MS on April 12-14th. Jake used data collected as part of our Sea Grant project to develop a preliminary metric-based indicator of functional recovery in restored tidal marshes.

Congrats to Lorae' Simpson and team on this new paper about the effects of nutrient loading on the long-term stability of mangrove cays in Belize.

Bird rookery nutrient over-enrichment as a potential accelerant of mangrove cay decline in Belize - Oecologia Coastal eutrophication is an issue of serious global concern and although nutrient subsidies can enhance primary productivity of coastal wetlands, they can be detrimental to their long-term maintenance. By supplying nutrients to coastal ecosystems at levels comparable to intensive agriculture practi...

Congratulations to Taylor Ledford and other members of the Cherry and Mortazavi labs on the publication of another study about ecosystem functions in natural and constructed marshes along the Fowl River in Alabama. You can read about it here:

Ecosystem carbon exchange and nitrogen removal rates in two 33‐year‐old constructed salt marshes are similar to those in a nearby natural marsh Human activities have led to 1–2% of coastal wetlands lost per year globally, with subsequent losses in ecosystem services such as nutrient filtering and carbon sequestration. Wetland construction is...

Congratulations to Jacob Dybiec and Emily Fromenthal, both of whom received student research grants from the Society of Wetland Scientists to support their graduate research.

Say thanks to the salt marsh next time you enjoy a seafood dinner! Salt marshes are a nursery and home for more than 75% of the seafood species we enjoy eating, including fish, shrimp, and blue crabs.

Source: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/habitat-conservation/value-habitat

Cherry Lab alumna, Sara Martin, is today’s Women of Sea Grant featured scientist!

Wetland specialist Sara Martin is today's featured scientist. Read her latest blog post on how wetland are so much a part of the Gulf Coast lifestyle, they are even part of holiday traditions: http://masgc.org/news/article/wetlands-make-the-holiday-season-on-the-coast-unique