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Nell Bowen measuring surface elevation tables (SETs) to measure marsh accretion. Photo by Emma Rosser.
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Announcements
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The Engagement Committee launched Monday Meetups at Marshview this summer - casual, every-other-week gatherings for anyone connected to the PIE community. This has provided the opportunity for summer residents and nearby researchers to socialize and connect with others across labs and career stages.
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Photo by Lucia Ramirez-Joseph.
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PIE is hosting two events as part of Essex National Heritage Area Trails and Sails, an annual series of events that helps connect people to the special places, assets, stories, and initiatives throughout Essex County, Massachusetts.
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September 23 11am-12pm
Shellfish: A Resource Valuable Beyond our Dinner Plates
PIE LTER will host this event focused on the importance of shellfish in local estuaries, demonstrating the services they provide as filter feeders and important parts of food webs, but also the challenges their populations face due to predation and water quality issues. The event will be at the Marshview Farm Field Station, no reservation required.
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Risa, the PIE Information Manager, will be offering three Data Management office hours this fall to answer questions about data analysis, data management, and the data publication process. The office hours will be 3-4pm on Monday, September 22, Monday, October 6, and Monday, October 20. Zoom link.
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We are excited to announce that Susan Quateman has a solo exhibit “Silk Explorations of the Great Marsh" of her beautiful silk paintings at the St. Botolph Club in Boston. Susan has collaborated with us on art-sci-education projects highlighting the Great Marsh, and she is passionate about sharing the beauty and importance of the marsh as well as the threats it faces. This recognition and publicity is well deserved! The exhibit will be open on to the public on Wednesdays from 2:00 to 4:00 September 10 through October 17.
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Silk painting of Horseshoe Crabs and Red Knots by Susan Quateman.
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The Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia invites applications for four tenure-track positions in Ecosystem Ecology at the Assistant Professor level. These are academic year, 9-month appointments that would begin on either August 1, 2026 or August 1, 2027. They are seeking to hire two colleagues with expertise in aquatic ecosystems (i.e., freshwater, marine, or wetland), and two with expertise in terrestrial ecosystems. Apply here!
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Thanks for an amazing summer of science at PIE!
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Top left to right: Nell Bowen and Nancy Yang taking soil core samples 📷 Anne Giblin; Emily Jesseph showing off the largest striped bass caught this summer 📷 Dillon Doomstorm; Sam Kelsey, Jim Laundre, and Hannah Orton installing phenocams at the Typha site on the Parker River 📷 Zoe Cardon
Middle left to right: Lucia Ramirez-Joseph and REUs Lindsey Davis and Anna Davidson staying warm on the Growler 📷 Lucia Ramirez-Joseph; Zoe Cardon and Sam Kelsey breaking in the new boat, the Flight 📷 Nell Bowen; Lucia Ramirez-Joseph and REU Lindsey Davis pulling cores for clam recruitment 📷 Dillon Doomstorm
Bottom left to right: Anne Giblin sampling soils 📷 Jane Tucker; REUs Colin Surdam and Anna Davidson setting up a predation experiment with fiddler crabs 📷 Valerie Acosta Rodriguez; Valerie Acosta Rodriguez, Emily Jesseph, and Dillon Doomstorm taking a kayak tour with the Ipswich River Society 📷 Valerie Acosta Rodriguez
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Slice of PIE
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This year's PIE REUs presented their summer research projects at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Undergraduate Research Poster Session on August 14. The students did an outstanding job this summer, and along with their mentors, teamed up to accomplish all the work presented and summarized below. When asked, they all said they enjoyed the experience, even the muddy field work - which makes them true marsh scientists!
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Left to right: Anna Davidson, Colin Surdam, and Lindsey Davis with their posters. Photos by Jane Tucker.
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Anna Davidson is a student at the University of Georgia and was mentored this summer by the Nelson Lab (Jimmy Nelson, Lucia Ramirez-Joseph, Dillon Doomstorm, and Em Foster). Anna explored whether characteristics of the fiddler crab Minuca pugnax, a climate migrant at PIE, differed across creeks with different exposure to nutrient enrichment. She used a transect approach to quantify burrow density, burrow diameter, and fiddler crab carapace length along creek banks of two un-enriched reference sites, and two previously enriched creeks - one long-term and one short term. Similar to previous studies, Anna reports no significant difference in burrow density between the sites. In contrast to other studies which found differences in carapace length and burrow diameter with under conditions of active enrichment, there were no significant differences found in these measures at the PIE creeks with previous enrichment. Anna suggests that future studies might examine other characteristics, such as mortality rate or sex ratios, to look for legacy effects of previous enrichment.
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Colin Surdam from Saint Anslem College, NH, worked with David Johnson and Valerie Acosta Rodriguez from Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences to study what effects fiddler crabs, as new residents of PIE marshes, may be having on annelid and benthic microalgal (BMA) populations. With a series of exclusion treatments, Colin prevented burrowing, grazing, or both, by fiddler crabs and compared abundance of annelids and diatom biomass in those treatments to controls. Colin’s results suggest that burrowing may have a negative effect on annelid populations, especially on polychaetes, although differences were not significant. Grazing significantly reduced biomass of benthic microalgae, an important component of fiddler crab diets. Burrowing effects on BMA were inconclusive, as the preventative mesh on the sediment surface may have had additional effects. Colin concluded that fiddler crabs introduce new disturbance mechanisms at PIE, and questions how large their impact may become as fiddler populations grow.
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Lindsey Davis, a student from Bowling Green State University, was mentored by David Kimbro from Northeastern with help from Dillon and Lucia from the Nelson Lab. Lindsey explored the question of why soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria) are in decline in PIE estuaries: is it lack of recruitment or predation? In July, Lindsey harvested 7 of 14 recruitment boxes (designed by B. Beal to allow larval settlement but prevent or deter predation) that were deployed in April and collected sediment cores from the same area as control comparisons. Contents of boxes and cores were sieved and anything living was identified, weighed, measured, and preserved. Results showed a clear difference, with clam counts negligible outside the boxes, but with a median of 15 and range up to ~90 juvenile clams inside. Lindsey’s project offers strong evidence that predation is a major contributor to population declines, rather than lack of recruitment. It also offers a method to increase clam harvests for the local fishery. Lindsey replaced the 7 harvested boxes with new ones, and they will be harvested in the fall along with the 7 that will have been in place since April. These results will give us additional insights into timing of recruitment as well as predation.
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Anna Davidson, Dillon Doomstorm, Valeria Acosta Rodriguez, Colin Surdam, Lucia Ramirez-Joseph, Lindsey Davis, and David Kimbro. Photo by Jane Tucker.
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Network News
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ESIP is seeking proposals that enable broader adoption and effective utilization of AI/ML in geospatial. The deadline is September 5, 2025. Read more here.
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Recent Publications
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Geophysical Research Letters
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Xixing Liang, Zhijun Dai, Xuefei Mei, Riming Wang, Wenjun Zeng, Sergio Fagherazzi
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Frontiers in Marine Science
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Yuxian Gu, Guangxuan Han, Liang Geng, Baohua Xie, Yanan Zhang, Danghan Xie, Sergio Fagherazzi, Heyue Zhang, Giovanni Coco, Zeng Zhou
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Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research
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Charles S. Hopkinson, Nathaniel B. Weston, Joseph J. Vallino, Robert H. Garritt, Inke Forbrich
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Jiangjie Yang, Zhijun Dai, Xuefei Mei, Yaying Lou, Sergio Fagherazzi
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Aiyin Zhang, Robert Gilmore Pontius Jr, Thomas Mumuni Bilintoh, Florencia Sangermano, John Rogan
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Joseph H. Vineis, Ashley N. Bulseco, Zoe G. Cardon, Jennifer L. Bowen
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Annual Review of Marine Science
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Matthew A. Reidenbach, Ming Li, Kenneth A. Rose, Tori Tomiczek, James Morris, Cindy M. Palinkas, Lorie W. Staver, William Nardin, Matthew W. Gray, Serena B. Lee, Ariana E. Sutton-Grier, Amy M. Hruska
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Michael Armstrong, José Antonio Constantine, Allison Gill
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The PIE LTER Newsletter is a forum for sharing news, opportunities, and activities from across the PIE LTER Community. If you have an announcement, workshop, job opportunity, or recent publication that would interest our community, please send them to pie_im@mbl.edu.
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