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A focus in this lab is the link between land use on watersheds and consequences in the receiving estuarine ecosystems. The work examines how landscape use and urbanization increase nutrient loading to groundwater and streams. Nutrients in groundwater are transported to the sea and then, after biogeochemical transformation, enter coastal waters. There increased nutrients bring about a series of changes on the ecological components. To understand the coupling of land use and consequences to receiving waters, the laboratory studies the processes involved, assesses ecological consequences, and defines opportunities for coastal management.
A second long-term research topic is the structure and function of salt marsh ecosystems, including the processes of predation, herbivory, decomposition, and nutrient cycles.
The lab is extending its work to include tropical systems, in particular, to the effects of mariculture on mangrove swamps.
Scientist Ivan Valiela
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Education:
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| 1968 |
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Ph.D. Ecology, Cornell University
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| 1964 |
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B.S. Agricultural Research, Rutgers University
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Recent Publications:
Valiela, I., and Cole, M.L. 2002. Comparative evidence that salt marshes and mangroves may protect seagrass meadows from land-derived nitrogen loads. Ecosystems, 5: 92-102.
Valiela I., and J. L. Bowen. 2002. Nitrogen sources to watersheds and estuaries: Role of land cover mosaics and losses within watersheds. Environmental Pollution, 118: 239-248.
Valiela, I., J. L. Bowen, and J. K. York. 2001. Mangrove forests: One of the world's threatened major tropical environments. BioScience 51: 807-815.
Valiela, I., J. L.Bowen, M. L. Cole, K. D. Kroeger, D. Lawrence, W. J. Pabich, G. Tomasky, and G.
S. Mazzilli. 2001. Following up on a Margalevian concept: Interactions and exchanges among adjacent parcels of coastal landscapes. Scientia Marina 65: 271-231.
Bowen, J. L., and I. Valiela. 2001. The ecological effects of urbanization of coastal watersheds: historical increases in nitrogen loads and eutrophication of Waquoit Bay estuaries. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 58: 1489-1500. |
