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GTMNERR Community Oyster Shell Recycling and Living Reef Construction Project
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This project established an oyster shell recycling program for St. Johns County, Florida, constructed a living shoreline, and planted spartina grass within the boundaries of the new reef to further protect the shoreline and provide nursery habitat for marine species at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve.
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Whitewater to Bluewater W2B
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Living Shoreline - Little St. Simons Island, GA.
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This project removed a failing bulkhead on Little St. Simons Island, GA and installed a living shoreline in its place to provide stream bank stabilization, habitat for eastern oysters, and essential fish habitat.
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Whitewater to Bluewater W2B
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Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean
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The great mass extinctions of the fossil record were a major creative force that provided entirely new kinds of opportunities for the subsequent explosive evolution and diversification of surviving clades. Today, the synergistic effects of human impacts are laying the groundwork for a comparably great Anthropocene mass extinction in the oceans with unknown ecological and evolutionary consequences. Synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, introduced species, warming, acidification, toxins, and massive runoff of nutrients are transforming once complex ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forests into monotonous level bottoms, transforming clear and productive coastal seas into anoxic dead zones, and transforming complex food webs topped by big animals into simplified, microbially dominated ecosystems with boom and bust cycles of toxic dinoflagel- late blooms, jellyfish, and disease. Rates of change are increasingly fast and nonlinear with sudden phase shifts to novel alternative community states. We can only guess at the kinds of organisms that will benefit from this mayhem that is radically altering the selective seascape far beyond the consequences of fishing or warming alone. The prospects are especially bleak for animals and plants compared with metabolically flexible microbes and algae. Halting and ultimately reversing these trends will require rapid and fundamental changes in fisheries, agricultural practice, and the emissions of green- house gases on a global scale.
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Climate Science Documents
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Coastal habitats shield people and property from sea-level rise and storms
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Extreme weather, sea-level rise and degraded coastal ecosystems are placing people and property at greater risk of damage from coastal hazards 1–5. The likelihood and magnitude of losses may be reduced by intact reefs and coastal vegetation 1, especially when those habitats fringe vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Using five sea-level-rise scenarios, we calculate a hazard index for every 1 km2 of the United States coastline. We use this index to identify the most vulnerable people and property as indicated by being in the upper quartile of hazard for the nation’s coastline. The number of people, poor families, elderly and total value of residential property that are most exposed to hazards can be reduced by half if existing coastal habitats remain fully intact. Coastal habitats defend the greatest number of people and total property value in Florida, New York and California. Our analyses deliver the first national map of risk reduction owing to natural habitats and indicates where conservation and restoration of reefs and vegetation have the greatest potential to protect coastal communities.
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Editorial : Beyond forest carbon
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The preservation of forests, both on land and in mangrove swamps, has received much attention in the move to protect biological carbon stores. Less conspicuous communities of organisms deserve some scrutiny, too.
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