Happy #EarthDay! Remember that we are all sharing a home on this pale blue dot, as Sagan put it "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." Let's work together to take care of our unique and precious home. (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech.)

Boston-area nature lovers, click here to join this weekend! www.inaturalist.org/projects/cit...

Nature is everywhere, even in the busiest cities. From April 24–27, over 100k people around the world will step outside & photograph the wild nature around them for the #CityNatureChallenge — the largest annual community science event. 🧵⤵️

I'm happy to say that I will start as an assistant professor in the @sc.edu's School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment this summer! My lab at the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences will investigate coastal #wetland #ecology, #biogeochemistry, and #climate change adaptation.

I had the chance to explore my first Eastern Atlantic #saltmarsh in February, thanks to @bluecarbonalex.bsky.social and Bill Austin, who are studying, among others, this marsh on Loch Linnhe in NW Scotland. Of course, a Scottish sediment core was taken with a modified golf hole cutter--nice core!

A field course in college was how I got my own start studying #mangroves, so it was gratifying to bring @northeasternu.bsky.social Three Seas students into the mangroves in Bocas del Toro, Panama in February, introducing them to collecting data and being naturalists in these wonderful wetlands.

In the #mangroves in Bocas del Toro, Panama, in February, I was struck again by the epiphyte cover and #biodiversity in an environment with only three tree species.

I had the chance to conduct #bluecarbon sediment coring in #Zostera pacifica seagrass beds off the Channel Islands October 2025, working with the Bay Foundation and @scrippsocean.bsky.social. Though the islands are sparse and forbidding, below the surface is a wonderland of green.

After taking our #Spartina belowground biomass cores at North Inlet-Winyah Bay, we sorted that biomass into three categories. Do different #nitrogen inputs to #saltmarshes affect allocation to long-lived rhizomes, root tissues devoted to resource acquisition, or turnover into the dead biomass pool?

In Sept. 2025 at North Inlet-Winyah Bay, we took the final samples for the #saltmarsh #nitrogen experiment that has been my focus for the past 3 years. Here I am placing the plot quadrat, pushing and hammering in the corer, and cutting the very last core sample. Now to write the papers....

Happy #WorldWetlandDay! I'm pleased to be back at North Inlet today, remembering a warmer time in Sept. 2025 when we sampled our #nitrogen #saltmarsh experimental plots (you can see the boosted plant height from the fertilizer) for the last time, including pulling these belowground biomass cores.

In August 2025 I had the chance to visit the new field station at Kendall-Frost Marsh, a UC Natural Reserve @ucsandiego.bsky.social. The new classroom and visiting scientist facilities enhanced the experience of studying this wonderful #wetland and sharing it with @scrippsocean.bsky.social students.

How do we get #saltmarsh cores? In our #nitrogen fertilization experimental plots @pie-lter.bsky.social,...

How changeable is a New England summer! Doing fieldwork @pie-lter.bsky.social in July 2025, one day it's 90° and sunny, the next the stalwart team is shivering in the rain, some opting to wear PFDs for extra insulation. Needless to say, we cut our #saltmarsh biomass measurements short that day.

In July 2025, we had a couple of former undergrad interns, already on their way to grad school, come out of retirement to help wrap up our #saltmarsh experiment @pie-lter.bsky.social. I'm glad we haven't scared them away from fieldwork! Thank you to all the students who have helped over the years.

Returning July 28, 2025 to sample our #saltmarsh fertilization experiment @pie-lter.bsky.social for the last time, it certainly seemed that the #nitrogen added over time increased the size of the plants in the plots. See also our a great team of students (shown heading back after a hard day's work).

How Wall Street Turned Its Back on Climate Change www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/c...

Observing the #saltmarsh creek bank @pie-lter.bsky.social (April 2025), you can see how the marsh platform has built up peat from the rhizomes of old Spartina alterniflora plants, atop older sediment layers, and in places crumbling away into the creek, as wind, tides, and ice erode the edges.

To study #saltmarsh response to nitrogen inputs @pie-lter.bsky.social, we've tracked marsh accretion, which may be affected by changes in root growth. Here I am placing a quadrat on a 1 m2 plot and holding this staff, which is read by a laser elevation system, on the marsh surface (April 2025).

When you visit the #saltmarsh @pie-lter.bsky.social in spring, you can see large slabs of #sediment on the marsh platform, which have been deposited there over the winter by ice rafting: ice freezing to the mudflat, and the frozen mud being carried around by winds and tides onto the marsh (April 4).

It's always interesting to see the salt marsh plants that sprout first in the spring, April 4, @pie-lter.bsky.social.

Visiting the #mangroves in Santa Catalina on the Pacific Coast of Panama in March 2025, I was struck by high levels of localized leaf #herbivory. Does anyone know what organism(s) are responsible?

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/o...

How do you get all the dried biomass from 36 #saltmarsh plant mesocosms home from a field site hundreds of miles away (along with with frozen water samples and sediment)? A lot of drying, sorting into paper bags, packing into duffels and coolers, and schlepping through airports..., but they made it!

Check out the amazing density of snails on the Spartina alterniflora #saltmarsh plants at North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR. (I think that they are Littoraria irrorata, but chime in if you have a better id!)

In November 2024, after two growing seasons of treatments, you can really see the effect of #nitrogen fertilization in our field plots at North Inlet-Winyah Bay, SC! We are testing the effect of ammonium vs. nitrate inputs on #saltmarsh plant and microbe responses.

#Saltmarshes bury a lot of #carbon in place, but also excess, dead Spartina plant matter is carried away by wind and tides and can accumulate elsewhere, episodically loading sites like this marsh-upland edge with marsh wrack (North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR, September 2024).

In summer 2024 we collected the Spartina alterniflora plants and sediment from the marsh organs we used in our field experiment on the effects of different forms of nitrogen fertilization on #saltmarsh #carbon and #nitrogen cycling, @pie-lter.bsky.social and at North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR.

We got a fascinating tour of the oyster-rearing process right in the Rowley River by our neighbors at the Great Marsh Shellfish Co. ( www.thegreatmarshshellfishco.com ) in September 2024 @pie-lter.bsky.social. They were the tastiest things I've ever eaten pulled right out out of a salt marsh!

Check out the incredible density of fiddler crabs in the #saltmarsh at North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Reserve, where colleagues and I were measuring nitrogen cycling in June 2024.

Fallen asleep on the job? Dropped a contact lens? No, in fact estimating aboveground biomass in the #saltmarsh by measuring every shoot in a 25 cm x 25 cm plot means hours with your face in the grass (while perched precariously on a boardwalk plank or milk crate platform) @pie-lter.bsky.social.

Since 2023, we (@bowenlab.bsky.social, @randallhughes.bsky.social) have been testing how nitrogen inputs affect #saltmarsh plants, microbes, and carbon and nitrogen cycling, @pie-lter.bsky.social in Massachusetts and at North Inlet Winyah Bay NERR in South Carolina.

During National Estuaries Week, we're reflecting on our blue carbon work & the role of coastal ecosystems in storing carbon. Check out our blog with Dr. Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social: buff.ly/8qHDj5A #NationalEstuariesWeek #CommunicationSkills #SciComm #SciPol #StrategicMessaging

When our measurements in the #saltmarsh @pie-lter.bsky.social involve hanging out on the boardwalk over high tide, we get to see a whole other side of the environment, from the marsh organs being overtopped by the tide to egrets (and the midges...) waiting at the edge of the water to feed.

How do we measure #denitrification in our #saltmarsh ammonium and nitrate treatment plots at @pie-lter.bsky.social? Anne Giblin and Jane Tucker from @mblscience.bsky.social bring the lab into the field for this in situ "push-pull" denitrification measurement.

In April 2024, 1 year after planting these Spartina alterniflora in the #saltmarsh organs at North Inlet, they were going strong! We simulated different marsh elevations in three rows of pipes, and randomly assigned each plant a #nitrogen treatment. Stephanie and Karen survey the plants' progress.

Word of the Day: estuary www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/l...

news.northeastern.edu/2025/06/05/s... #saltmarsh @bowenlab.bsky.social

Putting Science Engagement into Practice with Dr. Matthew Costa | COMPASS www.compassscicomm.org/putting-scie...

At our #saltmarsh field plots @pie-lter.bsky.social and North-Inlet-Winyah Bay, we are measuring Spartina alterniflora biomass and CO2 uptake/release using clear plastic chambers attached to a CO2 analyzer (and a precariously perched laptop!). Thanks Stephanie, Camille, and Pooja (September 2023)!

We tend to put #saltmarshes and the #rockyintertidal into very different ecosystem boxes, but here's an example of salt marsh plants (Spartina alterniflora) growing in a patch of shallow peat among sand and gravel on the rocky shore in Essex County, MA (August 2023).

This particular spot in the #rockyintertidal environment in Essex County, MA, upon closer inspection, was crawling with springtails! Seashore springtails (Anurida maritima) are known to aggregate by use of a pheromone that helps them find each other. August 2023.

By August 2023 the #Spartina alterniflora plants we had planted in our marsh organs @pie-lter.bsky.social had grown to a healthy size! The different elevations of the marsh organ simulate the effects of varying sea level scenarios. Also, check out all those mud snails (Ilyanassa obsoleta?)!

April in the salt marsh at @pie-lter.bsky.social means that the Spartina alterniflora is sending up new shoots! See the little green new leaves among the brown of the previous year's dead biomass. This #saltmarsh plant's rhizomes overwinter underground but send up new leaves each spring. Apr 2023

Oregon Public Broadcasting briefly covered our recent #bluecarbon research on the Pacific coast www.opb.org/article/2025...

xkcd.com/3081/ #Resist