Ecological Society of America

02/07/2013 - Depression-era drainage ditches emerge as sleeping threat to Cape Cod salt marshes

Cape Cod, Massachusetts has a problem. The iconic salt marshes of the famous summer retreat are melting away at the edges, dying back from the most popular recreational areas. The erosion is a consequence of an unexpected synergy between recreational over-fishing and Great Depression-era ditches constructed by Works Progress Administration (WPA) in an effort to control mosquitoes. The cascade of ecological cause and effect is described by Tyler Coverdale and colleagues at Brown University in a paper published online this month in ESA's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

ESA's 97th Annual Meeting Explores Life on Earth: Preserving, Utilizing and Sustaining our Ecosystems in Portland, Ore.
Aug. 5-10, 2012

Jane Lubchenco, an Oregon State marine ecologist and head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will open the six day meeting with a keynote address on Sunday, August 5th, at 5:00 p.m. 

"Guru of old growth" Jerry F. Franklin, professor of Forest Resources at the University of Washington, and ethno-botanist Nancy Turner of the University of Victoria will also present plenary lectures.

 The meeting is expected to draw more than 4,300 scientists, policy makers, educators and concerned citizens to share emerging research.

Find registration, program, field trip, and other meeting information is at http://www.esa.org/portland/. Look for symposia and oral presentation titles to be posted in May.

In a break from past policy, presentations will not be embargoed and members of the press are invited to cover research presented at the meeting as soon as abstracts become publically available online.

• Interested press should contact Liza Lester at llester@esa.org or 202-833-8773 #211 to register.
• Access ESA's scientific journals. For free press access, contact Liza Lester.
• Find an expert source on our Rapid Response Team.

ESA provides periodic and invitation-based communications training workshops for scientists. Ecologists learn how to describe their research directly and succinctly and to respond to tough questions from the press.