Baltic TRANSCOAST Seminar - Prof. Kai Jensen (University of Hamburg)

Wadden Sea salt marshes (WSSM) are important ecosystems at the interface between land and sea as they deliver critical ecosystem services such as coastal protection and carbon sequestration. However, global change including rising levels of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, higher temperatures, accelerated rates of sea-level rise and also land-use change are all expected to affect ecosystem services and the stability of WSSM. In this talk, I aim to give a general introduction into WSSM and how they are affected by global change. Land-use change after the establishment of the Wadden Sea National Parks have been a major driver in ecosystem change during the last three to four decades. Using a native and a non-native invasive plant as example, I will discuss how land use change affects plant species and indirectly also biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Furthermore, the stability of WSSM to accelerated rates of sea level rise will be assessed and first insights in the role of WSSM for carbon sequestration will be presented. Knowledge gaps regarding the functioning of WSSM in a warmer world will be presented and the recently established whole ecosystem warming experiment MERIT will be introduced. Finally, the lack of information on the importance of biotic interactions for carbon cycling will be highlighted.