Climate-driven regime shifts in a mangrove-salt marsh ecotone over the past 250 years.

ABSTRACT: Climate change is driving the tropicalization of temperate ecosystems by shifting the range edges of numerous species poleward. Over the past few decades, mangroves have rapidly displaced salt marshes near multiple poleward mangrove range limits, including in northeast Florida. It is uncertain whether such mangrove expansions are due to anthropogenic climate change or natural climate variability. We combined historical accounts from books, personal journals, scientific articles, logbooks, photographs, and maps with climate data to show that the current ecotone between mangroves and salt marshes in northeast Florida has shifted between mangrove and salt marsh dominance at least 6 times between the late 1700s and 2017 due to decadal-scale fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of extrem

SUBMITTER: Cavanaugh KC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6815162 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature