Journal
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
Volume 19, Issue 5, Pages 1495-1503Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12147
Keywords
marsh organ; mesocosms; plant productivity; Schoenoplectus americanus; soil elevation; Spartina patens
Funding
- USGS Global Change Research Program [06ERAG0011]
- National Science Foundation's Long-term Research Environmental Biology program [DEB-0950080]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [0950080] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Div Of Biological Infrastructure [1156799] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Elevated CO2 and nitrogen (N) addition directly affect plant productivity and the mechanisms that allow tidal marshes to maintain a constant elevation relative to sea level, but it remains unknown how these global change drivers modify marsh plant response to sea level rise. Here we manipulated factorial combinations of CO2 concentration (two levels), N availability (two levels) and relative sea level (six levels) using in situ mesocosms containing a tidal marsh community composed of a sedge, Schoenoplectus americanus, and a grass, Spartina patens. Our objective is to determine, if elevated CO2 and N alter the growth and persistence of these plants in coastal ecosystems facing rising sea levels. After two growing seasons, we found that N addition enhanced plant growth particularly at sea levels where plants were most stressed by flooding (114% stimulation in the+10cm treatment), and N effects were generally larger in combination with elevated CO2 (288% stimulation). N fertilization shifted the optimal productivity of S. patens to a higher sea level, but did not confer S. patens an enhanced ability to tolerate sea level rise. S. americanus responded strongly to N only in the higher sea level treatments that excluded S. patens. Interestingly, addition of N, which has been suggested to accelerate marsh loss, may afford some marsh plants, such as the widespread sedge, S. americanus, the enhanced ability to tolerate inundation. However, if chronic N pollution reduces the availability of propagules of S. americanus or other flood-tolerant species on the landscape scale, this shift in species dominance could render tidal marshes more susceptible to marsh collapse.
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