Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Piedmont-South Atlantic CESU

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This project will provide new research initiatives and monthly re-measurement of permanent research sites previously established in Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Waccamaw NWR, and on university-entrusted lands at Hobcaw Barony (Georgetown, SC). The proposal should also be willing to establish parallel research plots outside of currently monitored National Wildlife Refuges. This five-year research effort will yield critical pathways and thresholds of climate conditions and ecological indicators of ecosystem stress in forest composition, structure, growth, and mortality of tidal freshwater forested wetlands. Important elements of the university research role will include forest productivity studies, stand composition analysis, and whole-tree ecophysiological studies of tidal freshwater forested wetlands of the Carolinas. Droughts, sea-level anomalies, and hurricanes are episodic events that can spur saltwater pulses over wider areas and of greater concentrations to require longer monitoring periods to capture the process and pattern of salinization and dieback. Additional process-based studies will be established as part of this agreement in order to identify and to model acute and chronic changes in the biogeochemical and hydrologic cycle of tidal freshwater forested wetlands. Target award date: May 15, 2009. Duration: through May 30, 2014.

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