MAY 9,
2019
When
saltwater inundates coastal forests as sea levels rise, it kills salt-sensitive
trees, leaving "ghost forests" of bare snags behind. A new study from
North Carolina State University explores how changes in vegetation affect
coastal bird species.
Over the
next century, a projected rise in sea levels will lead to chronic inundation
and saltwater exposure in coastal forests around the world. When saltwater
kills standing trees, forests are replaced by more salt-tolerant shrubs and
grasses, which shifts vegetation closer to the ground and creates habitat for
birds that prefer the understory rather than the forest canopy.
Researchers
studied these changes in coastal forests on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula,
home to North America's second-largest estuary, where freshwater from rivers
meets the ocean.
A
low-lying area with thousands of square miles below 2 meters in elevation, the
peninsula is highly sensitive to sea level rise.
The largely undeveloped region is renowned for its animal abundance and
biodiversity and has been compared to the Florida Everglades and the
African Serengeti. Researchers
identified 56 bird
species there for the study.
To
quantify changes in vegetation over time, such as those due to gradual sea
level rise, researchers used sonar-like Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)
images of coastal forests. Once they established the relationships between
different bird species and the LiDAR values in present-day forests, researchers
compared two sets of LiDAR data, one from 2001 and another from 2014, to
determine habitat gains and losses over the 13-year period.
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