Tidal marsh plant community response to sea-level rise: A mesocosm study

Aquatic Botany 101 (2012) 34–40

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Tidal marsh plant community response to sea-level rise: A mesocosm study Peter J. Sharpe ∗ , Andrew H. Baldwin Department of Environmental Science and Technology, The University of Maryland, 1426 Animal Science Building, College Park, MD 20742, USA

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Article history: Received 28 October 2011 Received in revised form 19 March 2012 Accepted 30 March 2012 Available online 6 April 2012 Keywords: Tidal Marsh Species diversity Biomass USA Chesapeake Bay

a b s t r a c t Recent evidence from field surveys suggests that periodic saline intrusions into tidal freshwater wetlands may not reduce plant species richness and that reductions in richness may not occur until a more consistent brackish salinity regime develops. In a greenhouse experiment using tidal wetland mesocosms, we tested the hypothesis that plant species richness of coastal marshes (wetlands dominated by herbaceous plants) would be similar under oligohaline (0.5–5) and freshwater conditions (