The resistance of Georgia coastal marshes to hurricanes

Abstract

Abstract Ecosystems vary broadly in their responses to disturbance, ranging from highly impacted to resilient or resistant. We conducted a large‐scale analysis of hurricane disturbance effects on coastal marshes by examining 20 years of data from 10 sites covering 100,000 ha at the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long‐Term Ecological Research site distributed across gradients of salinity and proximity to the ocean. We analyzed the impacts of Hurricanes Matthew (in 2016) and Irma (in 2017) on marsh biota (plants, crabs, and snails) and physical attributes (erosion, wrack deposition, and sedimentation). We compared these variables prior to the storms (2000–2015) to years with storms (2016, 2017) to those after the storms (2018–2020). Hurricanes generated storm surges that increased water depth and salinity of oligotrophic areas for up to 48 h. Biological variables in the marsh showed few effects of the hurricanes. The only physical variable affected was creek bank slumping; however, slumping had already increased a year before the hurricanes, suggesting that slumping could have a different cause. Thus, our study uncovered only minor, ephemeral impacts on Georgia coastal marshes, highlighting their resistance to hurricane disturbance of the lower magnitude that typically confronts this region of coastline.

Keywords

• climate change
• coastal protection
• disturbance ecology
• GCE‐LTER
• resilience
• salt marshes