Vegetation zones as indicators of denitrification potential in salt marshes.

ABSTRACT: Salt marsh vegetation zones shift in response to large-scale environmental changes such as sea-level rise (SLR) and restoration activities, but it is unclear if they are good indicators of soil nitrogen removal. Our goal was to characterize the relationship between denitrification potential and salt marsh vegetation zones in tidally restored and tidally unrestricted coastal marshes, and to use vegetation zones to extrapolate how SLR may influence high marsh denitrification at the landscape scale. We conducted denitrification enzyme activity assays on sediment collected from three vegetation zones expected to shift in distribution due to SLR and tidal flow restoration across 20 salt marshes in Connecticut, USA (n = 60 sampling plots) during the summer of 2017. We found lower denitrification

SUBMITTER: Ooi SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9539531 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature