The Plum Island Sound Land-Margin Ecosystems Research (LMER) site was the host site for the annual LMER All Scientists’ meeting held in October 1994 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Eighty scientists attended, representing the six LMER sites and several federal, state and local agencies.
Presenting plenary speeches were:
- Charles Vorosmarty, Complex Systems Center, University of New Hampshire (“Continental Scale Hydrology, Constituent Transport and Prospects for Modeling Connections to the Coastal Zone”)
- Michael Perdue, Georgia Tech (“Estimation of Structural Properties of Dissolved Organic Matter from its Elemental Composition and Implications for Bioavailability”)
- Rocky Geyer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (“Residence Time Estimation: Why and How”)
- Michael Dagg, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (“Zooplankton Grazing and Food Web Structure in Coastal Environments”)
Plum Island principal investigator Charles Hopkinson led a field trip through the watersheds of the Parker, Ipswich and Rowley Rivers highlighting the contrasting land uses. The larger Ipswich watershed is located in the “bedroom” suburbs north of Boston, while the Parker is in a relatively undisturbed area. The Plum Island Sound system contains one of the greatest expanses of tidal wetlands in New England.
A report of the meeting and 1995 LMER personnel directories are available from Debbie Scanlon at the LMER Coordination Office, 508-548-3705, ext. 470, ordScanlon@LTERnet.edu.
Several intriguing patterns were identified at the workshop, patterns that could not have been discerned without the diversity of sites that contributed data.