{"id":889,"date":"2017-07-28T15:30:04","date_gmt":"2017-07-28T15:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/?p=889"},"modified":"2018-03-21T12:32:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T12:32:37","slug":"twenty-first-century-climate-change-and-sav-in-the-chesapeake-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/2017\/07\/28\/twenty-first-century-climate-change-and-sav-in-the-chesapeake-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-first century climate change and SAV in the Chesapeake Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What does the future hold for the Chesapeake Bay?\u00a0 We attempted to address part of this question in our new article.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Twenty-first century climate change and submerged aquatic vegetation in a temperate estuary: the case of Chesapeake Bay<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
Thomas M. Arnold, Richard C. Zimmerman, Katharina A. M. Engelhardt & J. Court Stevenson<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Ecosystem Health and Sustainability<\/span> <\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
ABSTRACT<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Introduction:<\/b> The Chesapeake Bay was once renowned for expansive meadows of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). However, only 10% of the original meadows survive.\u00a0 Future restoration efforts will be complicated by accelerating climate change, including physiological stressors such as a predicted mean temperature increase of 2\u20136\u00b0C and a 50\u2013160% increase in CO2<\/sub> concentrations.<\/p>\n

Outcomes:<\/b>\u00a0As the Chesapeake Bay begins to exhibit characteristics of a subtropical estuary, summer heat waves will become more frequent and severe. Warming alone would eventually eliminate eelgrass (Zostera marina)<\/i> from the region.\u00a0It will favor native heat-tolerant species such as widgeon grass (Ruppia maritima<\/i>) while facilitating colonization by non-native seagrasses (e.g., Halodule<\/i> spp.). Intensifying human activity will also fuel coastal zone acidification and the resulting high CO2<\/sub>\/low pH conditions may benefit SAV via<\/i> a \u201cCO2<\/sub> fertilization effect.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Discussion:<\/b>\u00a0Acidification is known to offset the effects of thermal stress and may have similar effects in estuaries, assuming water clarity is sufficient to support CO2<\/sub>-stimulated photosynthesis and plants are not overgrown by epiphytes.\u00a0However, coastal zone acidification is variable, driven mostly by local biological processes that may or may not always counterbalance the effects of regional warming.\u00a0This precarious equipoise between two forces \u2013 thermal stress and acidification \u2013 will be critically important because it may ultimately determine the fate of cool-water plants such as Zostera marina<\/i> in the Chesapeake Bay.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/b>\u00a0The combined impacts of warming, coastal zone acidification, water clarity, and overgrowth of competing algae will determine the fate of SAV communities in rapidly changing temperate estuaries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does the future hold for the Chesapeake Bay?\u00a0 We attempted to address part of this question in our new article. Twenty-first century climate change and submerged aquatic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}