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Salt Marsh Morphological Evolution Under Plant Species Invasion

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Abstract

Species invasion in salt marsh wetlands is known to disturb the balance of biotic and abiotic ecosystems (e.g., changing material exchange cycles and community structure). However, its influence on the morphological evolution of salt marshes is not yet understood in depth. This study investigates the long-term temporal and spatial distributions of an invasive plant (Spartina alterniflora) and its morphological characteristics in the Yangtze Estuary by remote sensing imagery interpretation, tidal creek extraction, regional statistical analysis, and proximity analysis. The invaded site shows an area of Spartina alterniflora with a 35-fold increase from the start to the end of its initiation phase; it is the second biggest species in the study area. It is found that species invasion not only limited the expansion of native pioneer vegetation but also changed bio-geomorphic feedback loops. With the influence of plant invasion, median tidal creek lengths decreased and the median tidal creek sinuosity ratio remained stable, between 1.06 and 1.07 in the subarea. The method used here is adaptable to other salt marshes. The findings from this study can provide practical guidance for the restoration of native salt marshes in the estuary and thus control the spread of invasive species.

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Data Availability

Data for this publication is available upon request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Shanghai Estuarine and Coastal Research Centre for furnishing bathymetry data of the Yangtze Estuary. The authors would also like to thank the Ministry of Transport in Shanghai Estuarine and Coastal Science Research Centre for their support in the data collection and field investigation.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2040204), the Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (BK2020020), and the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Estuarine & Coastal Engineering, Ministry of Transport (KLECE202301).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210024, China

    Xinchen Wang, Lucheng Zhan & Congcong Lao

  2. Key Laboratory of Estuarine & Coastal Engineering, Ministry of Transport, Shanghai, 201201, China

    Xinchen Wang

  3. The National Key Laboratory of Water Disaster Prevention, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210024, China

    Xinchen Wang, Lucheng Zhan, Congcong Lao & Pei Xin

  4. School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, 4222, Australia

    Hong Zhang

  5. Cities Research Institute, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, 4222, Australia

    Hong Zhang

  6. Yangtze Institute for Conservation and Development, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210024, China

    Pei Xin

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  1. Xinchen Wang
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  2. Hong Zhang
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  3. Lucheng Zhan
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Contributions

XW: conceptualization, data analysis, and writing—original draft. XP: resources, supervision, revise and editing. HZ: conceptualization, supervision, revision and editing; LZ: field investigation and revision of the manuscript. CL: preprocess of remote image and editing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

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Correspondence to Pei Xin.

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Wang, X., Zhang, H., Zhan, L. et al. Salt Marsh Morphological Evolution Under Plant Species Invasion. Estuaries and Coasts 47, 949–962 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-024-01346-7

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