Dr. Serina Wittyngham, now faculty at U. of North Florida, along with her advisor David S. Johnson and other VIMS researchers have been in the media recently talking and writing about crabs (specifically Sesarma reticulatum, purple marsh crab) and their impact on salt-marsh carbon storage . This work is from Serina’s excellent research on the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) and serves as a platform for some of our research going forward on the VCR.
David Johnson had a nice segment entitled “Marsh Madness” regarding the research on the With Good Reason radio program April 6. You can hear it at: https://www.withgoodreasonradio.org/episode/shellfish-unfiltered/?t=0&autoplay=1#s0
Serina’s work was also highlighted in the Bay Journal.
There is also an awesome paper in Ecology (Matt Kirwan and Yaping Chen, also at VIMS are co-authors).
In other news from the VCR, Serina just published her final chapter from her dissertation about how grazing by these crabs can shape Spartina traits.