A Long Legacy Victoria Long has a deep connection to the land here in Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Her family has farmed this land for generations—since 1652 to be exact. She grew up a few miles from the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, attended the local high school and began to work… Read more »
Martin Volaric (UVA Environmental Sciences) & Eli Stine (Music) Researchers studying intertidal oyster reefs are using sound recordings as a proxy for reef activity. During Summer 2018, researchers at the VCR-LTER made a series of recordings with two goals in mind:Credit: Cora Ann Johnston1) Pair sound with environmental measurements to study how reefs respond to… Read more »
Each year, art and science teachers are invited to Art and Ecology workshops that link Plein Aire landscape painting and observational drawing to salt marsh ecology and climate change impacts on coastal ecosystems. Nearly 30 teachers per year participate in these professional development opportunities, and over half return for a 2nd workshop. Workshops focus on… Read more »
The Environmental Humanities Conservatory is a collaboration between VCR-LTER and the UVA Department of Religion and Environmental Resilience Institute that aims to use listening to detect and understand coastal futures. The Conservatory works alongside scientific researchers and experts in ecoacoustics, anthropology, literature, ethics, and history to explore skills that help people interpret the magnitude of… Read more »
Researchers at the Virginia Coast Reserve LTER recently found that adjacent patches of salt marsh and seagrass increase sedimentation benefits in shallow coastal bays.
The Network received some sad news from the Virginia Coast Reserve LTER this week. They shared the following remembrance of Bruce Hayden, who passed away on September 10. A memorial service will be arranged later in the year. The family asks any donations in lieu of flowers be contributed to your local volunteer rescue squad or to support research at the Department of Environmental Sciences, UVA.
As temperatures rise in many regions around the world, plant species whose ranges were previously limited by low temperature thresholds and intolerance to freezing are increasingly able to expand into new areas and possibly overtake established vegetation regimes. On Hog Island, an undeveloped barrier island off the coast of Virginia, a group of LTER researchers… Read more »
Barrier islands’ harsh conditions, including nutrient and freshwater limitations and extremes of light and temperature, along with frequent large-scale disturbances, such as hurricanes, limit the number of plants species able to survive. As a result, successional trajectories can be convoluted.
Talk Description: Coastal habitats are the first line of defense against sea-level rise and storms. At the same time, they are vulnerable to change, and can be pushed past tipping points and lost. A long-term, landscape-scale experiment with seagrass at Virginia Coast Reserve LTER is the first of its kind to show the role of… Read more »
Human-induced changes may prevent wetlands from doing what they do best–mitigate expected sea level rise due to climate change, say Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) scientists in a paper featured in the latest issue of the scientific journal, Nature. In a press release issued by the National Science Foundation (NSF), lead author Matthew Kirwan of… Read more »
