Ecologist
Email:
lfeher@usgs.gov
Office Phone:
337-266-8582
ORCID:
0000-0002-5983-6190
Location
700 Cajundome Blvd.
Lafayette
, LA
70506
US
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Barrier islands provide important ecosystem services, including storm protection and erosion control to the mainland, habitat for fish and wildlife, and tourism (Barbier and others, 2011; Feagin and others, 2010). These islands tend to be dynamic due to their location along the estuarine-marine interface. Besides gradual changes caused by constant forces, such as currents and tides, barrier islands face numerous threats including hurricanes, accelerated sea-level rise, oil spills, and anthropogenic impacts (Pilkey and Cooper, 2014). These threats are likely to influence the future of barrier islands in the latter part of the 21st century, especially as climate-related threats to coastal areas are expected to increase...
Tags: Ecology,
Geography,
Geomorphology,
Gulf of Mexico,
Lower Alabama, All tags...
Mobile,
Monte Carlo,
Remote Sensing,
USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC),
barrier island,
dune,
elevation,
environment,
geoscientificInformation,
lidar,
vertical uncertainty, Fewer tags
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Abstract (from Springer): Climate change is altering species’ range limits and transforming ecosystems. For example, warming temperatures are leading to the range expansion of tropical, cold-sensitive species at the expense of their cold-tolerant counterparts. In some temperate and subtropical coastal wetlands, warming winters are enabling mangrove forest encroachment into salt marsh, which is a major regime shift that has significant ecological and societal ramifications. Here, we synthesized existing data and expert knowledge to assess the distribution of mangroves near rapidly changing range limits in the southeastern USA. We used expert elicitation to identify data limitations and highlight knowledge gaps for...
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We characterized coastal wetland responses to flooding stress by measuring vegetation cover, wetland elevation and water elevation in healthy and degrading wetlands dominated by Spartina patens. Wetland elevation was measured using real-time kinematic survey methods. Vegetation cover was determined by visual estimation methods, and water elevation was measured using in situ continuous recorders. In addition to these local-scale responses, we also measured landscape-scale patterns of land and water aggregation or fragmentation using remotely sensed data (Jones et al., 2018). Associated products: Jones, W.R., Hartley, S.B., Stagg, C.L., and Osland, M.J. 2018. Land-water classification for selected sites in McFaddin...
Categories: Data;
Tags: Grand Chenier,
Land Use Change,
Texas,
USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC),
aggregation, All tags...
ecological threshold,
flooding,
habitat fragmentation,
hydrologic characteristics of habitats,
wetlands, Fewer tags
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This dataset consists of a file geodatabase containing the digitized ecotone boundaries between mangroves and freshwater marsh in 2013 and 2019 at 14 systematically selected segments in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park (southwest Florida, USA).
Tags: Big Cypress National Preserve,
Ecology,
Everglades National Park,
Remote Sensing,
USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), All tags...
United States,
biogeography,
coastal ecosystems,
ecosystem monitoring,
geospatial datasets,
remote sensing,
southern Florida,
spatial analysis,
wetland ecosystems, Fewer tags
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Abstract (from Global Change Biology): Climate change is transforming ecosystems and affecting ecosystem goods and services. Along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the southeastern United States, the frequency and intensity of extreme freeze events greatly influence whether coastal wetlands are dominated by freeze-sensitive woody plants (mangrove forests) or freeze-tolerant grass-like plants (salt marshes). In response to warming winters, mangroves have been expanding and displacing salt marshes at varying degrees of severity in parts of north Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. As winter warming accelerates, mangrove range expansion is expected to increasingly modify wetland ecosystem structure and function....
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