Savannah Romano
Section: 020
Cleber Ten caten
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Spartina alterniflora
I N T R O D U C T I O N
B A C K G R O U N D
-Spartina alterniflora, also known as Saltmarsh Cordgrass, is the dominant angiosperm of most regularly flooded marshes that are part of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States (Mendelssohn 1982).
-Primary literature will talk about the growth of Saltmarsh Cordgrass in high salt concentration
T A X O N O M Y
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Ascomycota
Subphylum: Smooth cordgrass
Class: Sporobolus alterniflorus
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Genus: Sporobolus
Species: Spartina alterniflora
-Spartina alterniflora can vary in size from 0.3–2 m tall
-Spartina alterniflora performs best in a sunny area with sandy soil and wet clay (Hoffman) The season of interest is middle to late spring, all of summer, and early fall
-Eukaryotic, multicellular
-They can tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions because of their need for low maintenance (Hoffman).
-Floods
-Ph levels
-Salinity levels
General Characteristics- initially grows in round clumps, the stiffly erect stems are hollow and hairless, and they are densely packed plants on a mudflat
Habitat- marsh habitat, wave- protected mud, and sand flats
Food- used as food plants by the larvae and they are considered ecosystem engineers
D A T A A N A L A S I S
-This graph shows the difference in growth of the cord grass and its competitors depending on the salt concertation.
-Looking at the data you can see that the competitor of the cordgrass will actually grow higher in high salt concentration.
-Which is surprising because the cord grass requires very little maintenance and can survive harsh conditions.
-Rapidly spreading invasive plants in salt marshes are ideal subjects for studying the effects of non-resource stress on plant distribution (Tang 2014)
-Spartina alterniflora with high tolerance to salt stress changes vegetation pattern by outcompeting native species
-The study from the image above shows how salt stress mediates competition between native Phragmites australis and invasive Spartina alterniflora and thus changes plant communities in Dongtan, a Chinese coast salt marsh (Tang 2014)
-The reproduction of the native species declined with increasing salinity but that the invasive species performed well in the salinity range of 0–20% (Tang 2014)
-The growth rate of the invader became higher when the salinity was increased so then it gained the competitive dominance at high salinity of 11% (Tang 2014)
-The invader colonizing the native communities in high salinity zones performed better and could get rid of the natives over time (Tang 2014)
-The practices that change the level of non-resource stress and create favorable conditions for invasive species should be stopped (Tang 2014)
C O N C E P T S T O U N D E R S T A N D
-Spartina alterniflora is a perennial grass that forms clumps before forming meadows (Mendelssohn 1982)
-They have a dense root that can binds coastal mud
-It's hard stem lowers wave action allowing silt deposition which causes elevation of the mudbank, assisting in land reclamation
-grows initially in round clumps, eventually forming extensive monoculture meadows.
C O N C L U S I O N
- Spartina alterniflora is the dominant grass species in salt marshes and coastal beaches of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts
-Spartina alterniflora grow round clumps that turn into meadows
-They are low maintenance organisms but requires plenty of sunlight
-Salt changes the pattern of its growth and function
F U R T H E R S T U D I E S T O D I S C U S S
Different experiments that could be testing out other variables beside salt concentration such as light and temperature to continue to see which plant will grow higher
R E F E R E N C E S
Elemental Analysis of Deposits on the Roots of Spartina Alterniflora ... https://www.jstor.org/stable/2442887.
“Spartina Alterniflora (Smooth Cordgrass).” Gardenia.net, https://www.gardenia.net/plant/spartina-alterniflora.
Spartina Alterniflora with High Tolerance to Salt Stress Changes ... https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/ES14-00166.1.
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