Cherry Lab Receives Sea Grant to Study Wetland Restoration

As part of a new Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant project, entitled “Assessing Recovery of Ecosystem Structure and Function in Restored Tidal Marshes of the Mississippi-Alabama Gulf Coast,” Drs. Cherry and Mortazavi at the University of Alabama will evaluate ecosystem structure and function in habitat restoration and creation projects of different ages. Their objectives are to compare structural and functional attributes in restored coastal wetlands of different ages to reference wetlands, to estimate recovery trajectories and times to equivalency for these attributes, and to evaluate the relative effectiveness of different habitat restoration projects. They will inventory plant community structure, plant biomass, soil carbon storage, and nitrogen removal capacity via denitrification in 16 coastal wetlands, including 12 created or restored wetlands ranging in age from 4 to 33 years. Through these analyses, they will assess the relative effectiveness of different habitat restoration projects along the Mississippi-Alabama Gulf Coast, which will be used to inform future restoration practices. Thus, this project will provide important baseline information about restoration activities, while also assessing the structural and functional outcomes of projects that used different approaches for wetland restoration or creation.