The Paul W. Kirk Jr Memorial Lecture for Wetlands Ecology
2023
Dr. Marcelo Ardón Sayão
Associate Professor and University Faculty Scholar
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
Center for Geospatial Analytics
North Carolina State University
Ghost forests are areas that used to be forested wetlands and are now transitioning into marshes or open water. Research has documented increases in ghost forests across the eastern shore of the US. In North Carolina, both droughts and storms have led to saltwater intrusion, which can lead to the expansion of ghost forests. Ghost forests are indicators of climate change occurring in our back yard. This talk will explain what ghost forest are, how they are created, and what they represent both as indicators of climate change, and of resilience. Beyond documenting declines, our research seeks to understand mechanisms of change to help inform restoration and mitigation strategies. In this talk, I will share some of the lessons we have learned as we combine long-term monitoring, field and lab experiments, remote sensing, and citizen science in an effort to forecast and adapt to the effects of an uncertain future.
2019
Dr. Ariana Sutton-Grier
Visiting Associate Research Professor at the University of Maryland in the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC).
Title of lecture: Wetlands and Climate Change