James Morris
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Ecology & Evolution
Salt marshes protect coastlines and support fisheries, but rising seas threaten to drown them. Whether a marsh survives depends on whether its surface can build up as fast as the sea rises.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Earth & Environmental Science
Plant Science & Agriculture
- Topics
salt marsh
coastal wetlands
Spartina alterniflora
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Test whether salt marsh elevation gain is driven by belowground biomass production of Spartina alterniflora and scales with net ecosystem production, using long-term North Inlet measurements.
- Determine how plant production and decomposition of soil organic matter limit the rate of marsh surface elevation change, measuring belowground decay rates and microbial DNA and RNA from decomposing tissue.
- Test whether mineral deposition at the lower marsh edge rises as sea-level rise accelerates while plant production falls, using sediment cores and precise elevation surveys.
More about the research
Long-term records from North Inlet, South Carolina, begun in 1984, track how marshes form, change and stay stable. They include monthly nondestructive measurements of marsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) together with soil chemistry and marsh surface elevation. This research led to Marsh Equilibrium Theory, which explains how salt marshes maintain stability and forecasts their survival as sea levels change.
Why it matters
Forecasting whether salt marshes can keep pace with rising seas matters for fisheries, coastal infrastructure and the communities that depend on them. These decades-long records and tests of Marsh Equilibrium Theory could help coastal planners and managers anticipate where marshes will persist or be lost as sea-level rise accelerates.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jessica Sullivan
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Measure how subtle marsh elevation and drainage patterns control water flow across the marsh surface, sediment buildup and how long water stays, across a salt marsh to forest gradient in the ACE Basin, South Carolina.
Samantha Chapman
Villanova University, PA·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether excess nitrogen loading disrupts the soil accumulation that lets coastal wetlands keep up with sea level rise, using experimental nitrogen additions at creekside and interior field plots.
Merryl Alber
University of Georgia, GA·Ecology & Evolution
Characterize how the averages and variability of drivers such as sea level, salinity and flooding change across space and time on the Georgia coast, and integrate these dynamics through modeling.
The school
University of South Carolina-Columbia: 22 labs on PI Pages, $277M a year on research, 425 research doctorates a year.
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