Speaker: John Stepanek, Graduate Student, Hacker Lab, Department of Integrative Biology, OSU

Topic: Carbon storage and non-native beachgrasses in Pacific Northwest coastal sand dunes

As global carbon emissions continue to rise, scientists have become increasingly interested in the ability of coastal ecosystems to store carbon and buffer the impacts of climate change. Coastal sand dunes make up one third of the world’s ice-free coastlines and act as natural barriers to sea-level rise and storm surges, but there are very few studies on the capacity of these ecosystems to sequester and store carbon. In the Pacific Northwest of the United States, 45% of the coastline is covered by dunes, and they have experienced substantial change in size, morphology, vegetative cover, and ecosystems services since the introduction and spread of non-native Ammophila beachgrasses. We aim to understand the patterns and variations in carbon density and carbon stock across dunes of the Oregon and Washington coastlines and understand how vegetation influences this important ecosystem services.