GCE scientists Steve, Kalpana and Robert attending the 2026 DRAGNet workshop. 65 sites to date have implemented the same disturbance and fertilization experiment and are synthesizing the data to see how the results vary among sites.

GCE researcher Steve Pennings presented some of our findings in Japan.

Steve Pennings@stevenpennings.bsky.social · last mo.

Gave a seminar about GCE-LTER research in Japan at the Shimoda Marine Research Center.

From several LTER sites: how dead organisms affect the living. theconversation.com/life-after-d...

Life after death: From burned trees to bleached corals, how dead organisms live on as the building blocks of new life

The dead remains of foundation species can boost or deter how well future generations are able to grow and thrive.

theconversation.com

Responses of marsh plants to sea level rise. jecologyblog.com/2026/05/26/a...

A foundational salt marsh grass exhibits spatial variation in trait responses to sea level rise

Robert Dunn and Steve Pennings, University of Houston, discuss their article: Variable trait responses to rapid sea level rise in a foundational grass across a coastal marsh landscape One strategy …

jecologyblog.com

GCE data included in this new quantification of the extent of the grassland biome across the planet. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The global extent of the grassland biome and implications for the terrestrial carbon sink - Nature Ecology & Evolution

By combining satellite observations with ground-based data and expert validation, this analysis demonstrates considerable misestimation of grassland extent and thereby carbon stock estimates in previo...

nature.com

GCE data included in a new global analysis showing that intense solar radiation limits plant species richness in grasslands. www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

The Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long-Term Ecological Research program is accepting applications for paid summer internships. gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/public/emplo...

GCE scientists enjoyed the AGU meeting in New Orleans in December 2025.

The GCE LTER annual meeting in December marked the transition from GCE IV to GCE V. Looking back at lots of great accomplishments in GCE IV and looking forward to lots of great new research in GCE V.

The Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long-Term Ecological Research program is looking for a postdoc with expertise in wetlands and biogeochemistry. Please pass this along to likely candidates!

UH and GCE graduate student Claudia at the CERF conference with her poster about long-term change in salt marsh vegetation.

UH and GCE graduate student Eamon Hennessy talking about marsh recovery from disturbance at the CERF conference

Steve talking about marsh plant responses to sea level rise at CERF.

UH and GCE graduate student Kalpana presenting about disturbances in salt marshes at the CERF conference in Richmond VA.

GCE enjoying the CERF 2025 conference.

GCE fall monitoring going smoothly thanks to help from multiple people from multiple labs. Thank you everyone!

With Megan Vahsen and collaborators on Sapelo Island collecting cores. The goal is to resurrect ancient seeds from the cores and see how the plants have evolved over time.

Pennings lab was thrilled recently to have a visit from my past PhD student, Chuan Kai Ho, now a Professor and Director in Taiwan, and two of his graduate students.

lternet.edu/stories/a-da...

A Day in the Life: Behind the Scenes on Sapelo Island - LTER

It is hard to put into words how exciting and simultaneously peaceful life is in this hidden corner of the world. The best we can hope to do is take you along for a regular day GCE LTER…make sure to s...

lternet.edu

#Genotype × genotype interactions in a plant–microbe #symbiosis 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 👆 A #Commentary by Kerri Crawford & Claudia Franco on this article by Hanley et al. 👇 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #LatestIssue #PlantScience

After the experiments are done, they need to be cleaned up. Sometimes scientists forget or abandon them. Today we cleaned up an experiment abandoned by a researcher who lives in another country and so isn't likely to be able to clean it up himself.

Setting collars for measuring ecosystem respiration in the salt marsh at Sapelo Island GA.

GCE scientists estimated above- and belowground biomass of Spartina along the entire Georgia coast for ten years (2014-2023). A decline in belowground biomass often preceded above-ground loss, making it an important indicator of marsh vulnerability. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2425501122

Study finds early signs of widespread coastal marsh decline

Researchers have revealed the declining health of coastal marshes several years before visible signs of decline, providing an early warning and opportunity to protect an ecosystem that serves as the f...

source.colostate.edu

Pulling out an old marsh experiment that was installed in 2012. Setting the experiments up is more fun than decommissioning them, but cleanup is part of the job.

The GCE implementation of the global DRAGNET disturbance experiment shows little recovery in tilled plots almost two years after the last disturbance. Tilled plots have subsided a couple cm and are a pretty hostile environment for plant growth.

Comparative Metabolism and Blue Carbon Sequestration of Two Wetland-Dominated Estuaries spj.science.org/doi/full/10....

Comparative Metabolism and Blue Carbon Sequestration of Two Wetland-Dominated Estuaries | Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research

Coastal tidal wetlands and estuaries play important roles in the global carbon budget by contributing to the net withdrawal of CO2 from the atmosphere. We quantified the linkages between terrestrial a...

spj.science.org

Modern coastal ecosystems of the Southeast are shaped by deep-time human-environment interactions www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Modern coastal ecosystems of the American Southeast are shaped by deep-time human-environment interactions - Communications Earth & Environment

Modern ecological and geomorphological baselines along the Georgia coast of eastern North America are structured by 5000 years of Indigenous and Euro-American interactions with these environments, acc...

nature.com

Climate warming disrupts the allocation between sexual and clonal reproduction in a salt marsh plant. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Global warming disrupts the relative allocation between sexual and clonal reproduction in a common salt marsh plant

Adjusting relative allocation between sexual and clonal reproduction is part of how plants respond to a variable environment, but we know little about how the allocation strategies of plant populatio...

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Congratulations to Celine Saidy, who won one of the prizes for her poster presentation on long-term change in salt marsh plant height at the UH Ecology and Evolution symposium.

The GCE LTER has an open postdoctoral position to study how ecosystem variability affects function. The postdoc will lead field and lab experiments and collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team. Expertise in wetlands, biogeochemistry and ecology desired. gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/public/app/a...