Michael Burns

Title: Seasonal Distribution of Marine Organisms in a Salt Marsh Ecosystem in Wallops Island, VA

Abstract: Wallops Island, located in Virginia, is uniquely characterized as a salt marsh estuary that serves as the bridge between the Atlantic Ocean and Chincoteague Bay.This particular ecosystem houses many marine organisms that operate dynamically via processes that fuel the environmental operations. Many physical processes, such as tides, currents, and extreme weather events alter the properties of the aqueous environments these organisms live in. These instantaneous events, however, do not have a direct influence on the seasonal distribution of the organisms. Instead, temperature, salinity, and pH changes based on the time of year, not time of day, define how the organisms inhabit and operate within the estuarine ecosystems. In this study, the seasonal distribution of marine organisms is observed via statistical analysis over a 10 year period, from 2005 until 2015, with the intention to display how the warming trends of the globe affect the distribution of the marine life.

Keywords: Wallops Island, marine life, salt marsh