Vegetation results

Our experiment yielded interesting results on the vegetation dispersal in the GTM NERR restoration site. We found that Spartina alterniflora was the most abundant along the shoreline while the smaller plants such as Batis maritima and Sporobulus virginicus dominated the more elevated regions. We postulated that because Spartina is very stress resistant it is able to thrive in these high stress environments. The Spartina also reduces the wave energy which we believe allows the smaller salt resistant plants able to grow behind the Spartina regions. However the results that we were mainly focusing on were not what we had expected. We thought the reefs would act as a wave buffer and make the areas behind them more stable which would allow for sediment accumulation and vegetation expansion. What the data showed was that there was no significant difference between the north site behind the reef and the control sites on either side of the reefs. This was the older section of the reef which was installed about a month prior to the south reefs installation. That is why we were surprised to see that the north section had lost more shoreline then the south section which had the oyster reefs for a shorter amount of time. This was the opposite of what we were expecting. To account for this we hypothesized that because of the reefs small size they may not prevent erosion but merely change the way that it occurs. To better understand our results further experimentation is required.