Climate Stress and Coastal Food Webs

Duration
Description
In this talk, ecologist Brian Silliman discusses the factors behind major die-offs of coastal wetlands.
Many coastal ecosystems are stressed by human impacts, such as overfishing, pollution, and climate change. When multiple stressors are combined, they may have a huge impact on the health of an ecosystem. Silliman describes how salt marshes in particular are affected by interactions between climate stress and top-down control by herbivores. He also illustrates how similar interactions and stressors may lead to the decline of other ecosystems.
This talk is from a 2016 Holiday Lecture Series, Ecology of Rivers and Coasts: Food Webs and Human Impacts.
Key Terms
consumer, drought, ecological resilience, grazer, salt marsh, snail front, stressor, top-down control, trophic cascade
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