Workshop: Sustaining Barrier Island Ecosystems in a Changing Global Environment, to be held, Biloxi, MS on April 13-15, 2006.

Wake Forest University, Winston Salem NC

Investigators

Abstract

Barrier islands are unique island ecosystems that border coastal shorelines and separate the offshore oceanic province with the inshore sounds and estuaries. As their name implies, they provide a physical barrier that protects continental shorelines from often powerful wave action originating offshore, occurring along all major continents worldwide. Importantly, these ecosystems have an abundance of highly adapted endemic and indigenous species that survive in a uniquely stressful environment within the ecotonal transition from land to sea. The relatively unique physiochemical features of barrier islands also create a diverse spatial and temporal environment, supporting a diversity of plant species that may be highly specialized in their adaptive modes. However, these same communities often appear limited in species richness, due most likely to the stressful nature of this abiotic regime. In addition, these island ecosystems may be particularly vulnerable to global change impacts, including sea level rise and the prediction that the intensity and duration of severe oceanic storms such as hurricanes will increase with continued global warming. There may be few ecosystems that demonstrate so vividly the tight coupling between ecosystem stability, episodic extreme disturbances, and global change effects. The objective of this proposed workshop will be to consider, from a broad spectrum of expertise, the sustainability of barrier island ecosystems under current global change scenarios (more frequent and intense storms), including the likelihood of increasing anthropogenic disturbance. Solution of this future sustainability question for barrier islands could serve as a model system whereby biology, geology, economics, and remote sensing can be effectively integrated for the purpose of sustaining healthy ecosystems .