As sea‐level rise converts coastal forest to salt marsh, marsh arthropods may migrate inland; however, the resulting changes in arthropod communities, including the stage of forest retreat that first supports saltmarsh species, remain unknown. Furthermore, the ghost forest that forms in the wake of rapid forest retreat offers an unknown quality of habitat to marsh arthropods. In a migrating marsh in Virginia, USA, ground‐dwelling arthropod communities were assessed across the forest‐to‐marsh gradient, and functional use of ghost forest and high marsh habitats was evaluated to determine whether marsh arthropods utilized expanded marsh in the same way as existing marsh. Diet and body condition were compared for two marsh species found in both high marsh and ghost forest (the detritivore amphipod,
Climate‐driven ecosystem shifts occur through turnover in the foundation species which structure the landscape. Therefore, to predict the fate of areas undergoing climate‐driven ecosystem shifts, one approach is to characterize ecological and evolutionary responses of foundation species along dynamic environmental gradients. One such gradient is the ecotone between tidal marshes and maritime forests in coastal areas of the US Mid‐Atlantic region where accelerated sea‐level rise and coastal storms of increased frequency and intensity are driving forest dieback and inland marsh migration. Mid‐Atlantic tidal marshes are structured by marsh grasses which act as foundation species, and these grasses exhibit trait variation across their distribution from established marsh interior to their inland migration front. We conducted a reciprocal transplant experiment with
- Award ID(s):
- 1832221
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10537641
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecosphere
- Volume:
- 15
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 2150-8925
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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