Abstract for Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) Conference July 2011

Title: Vegetation Diversity, Carbon Sequestration, and Anthropogenic Disturbance as Metrics for Assessing Wetland Condition

Author(s): Andrew H. Baldwin(1), Dennis F. Whigham(2)
Affiliation(s): (1) University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (2) Smithsonian Environmental 

Research Center, Edgewater, MD 21037
Vegetation responds rapidly to changes in management, physical disturbance, and environmental conditions, making it a useful parameter for detecting differences in condition between wetlands that have experienced different degrees of alteration. Furthermore, vegetation composition, structure, and productivity are integral to many other wetland functions, including biodiversity maintenance, nutrient processing, hydrology, sediment trapping, carbon cycling, and fish and wildlife habitat and population support.  As part of a multi-investigator project to assess the effectiveness of USDA-NRCS conservation measures (CEAP), this study examines two important wetland ecosystem functions, specifically 1) Support of native plant communities; and 2) Regulating greenhouse gas emissions, specifically carbon sequestration by vegetation.  Forty-eight isolated depressional wetlands in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and North Carolina have been selected for study.  Sites are evenly divided between natural, prior converted (farmed), and restored wetlands.  Each site will be visited during the peak of the 2011 growing season and sampled for species richness and evenness using randomly select 10x10-m modules spanning elevation/hydroperiod zones.  Data will be analyzed using the FAQwet Floristic Assessment Quotient for Wetlands and Anthropogenic Activity Index developed by Ervin et al. in 2006.  In order to quantify the carbon sequestration by the vegetation at each site, above ground biomass of herbaceous vegetation will be sampled in 1x1-m plots and the basal area of woody vegetation will be calculated.  Results from this research will be used to assess wetland conservation and management measures in the mid-Atlantic region and support national models designed to influence management of wetlands in agricultural landscapes.

Formerly a young angry environmentalist, I seak a new voice

I was a young angry environmentalist, captain of the debate team and a firm believer that rationality could save us all. It was these traits, my love of being ankle deep in a bog and my hatred of office work that set me on the path toward graduate school. The path was much longer than I had expected and along the I way mellowed into a less angry environmentalist. I went from being a proselytizing vegan to mostly vegetarian moral eater. Debating and the power of a rational truth lost their charm when I began to encounter people who were smarter and better read than I and who disagreed with my view points. I did not have the arsenal to one up them, but I still firmly believed I was right, and so I stopped talking to people about my "radical" views because they either already agreed with me or could not be defeated through debate.

Going to graduate school to study freshwater wetland plant ecology seemed like a good idea because it would allow me to eventually become an expert on one small ecosystem. I hoped to appeal to the masses and decision makers' rationality using this expertise to protect wetlands.

I am nearing the end of my first semester of graduate school and it is still my plan to become an expert in freshwater wetlands in order to have the tools to protect them, but I find that I have lost my voice from a lack of writing and debating and the whirl wind of graduate school which is, of course, nothing like I thought it would be. I have not yet figured out how to combine science and my world view into convincing words let alone string those words into sentences and paragraphs. Thus the new goal for this blog is to try to find my voice and synthesize what I learn at graduate school with my "beliefs."