ECU ecologists collaborate on reef, habitat restoration projects to protect shorelines, tourism

ECU ecologists collaborate on reef, habitat restoration projects to protect shorelines, tourism

As she wades out into waist-deep water along North Carolina's Pine Knoll Shores, East Carolina University associate professor Dr. April Blakeslee and other faculty and student researchers in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences are researching ways to protect our shoreline and coastal inhabitants. They are helping protect the coast by evaluating three living shoreline designs implemented in a state-funded restoration project.

Living shorelines are a nature-based method for stabilizing coasts and protecting them from erosion. Unlike artificial seawalls and bulkheads, living shorelines often include a mix of natural and man-made substrate, including oyster shells, rocks and concrete. Living shorelines not only prevent erosion but filter pollutants and provide critical wildlife habitats that support the state's tourism and fishing industries. They also provide an added buffer to protect waterfront homes and buildings.

"Living shoreline designs have evolved to become more resilient to storms, sea level rise and wave energy, and vary in their structural morphologies and complexities, making them ideal for natural experiments of their efficacy," said Blakeslee.

Blakeslee and Dr. Rachel Gittman, also an associate professor in the Department of Biology, along with undergraduate and graduate students from their labs, are working with state and national scientists on the projects. Partners include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), North Carolina Coastal Federation, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores and the Theodore Roosevelt Natural Area, a 265-acre state park in Pine Knoll Shores.

"It's a really nice undeveloped stretch of back barrier, intertidal marsh, seagrass and oyster habitat," Gittman said.

Gittman, who documented and measured a community of fouling organisms on one of the living shoreline designs, said the state park is also a long-term study site that NOAA uses to monitor changes in marsh shorelines. They have documented meters of marsh loss over the last couple of decades, which she said is concerning given the critical ecosystem services marshes provide, including improved water quality and habitat for commercially and recreationally valuable fish species.

"Although erosion is a natural process, rising sea levels and human alteration of the coast are exacerbating and accelerating erosion of the N.C. coastal marshes," she said.

Restoration Efforts

In 2000, staff at the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores stabilized its shoreline with a rock structure to protect the infrastructure, but the rest of the shoreline continued to erode. Therefore, in 2023, the North Carolina legislature allocated funding for shoreline restoration projects.

This is where ECU and other community partners came in. State officials wanted restoration of the shoreline to be a combination of a hard structure, for erosion control, and a habitat for oysters and fish. To achieve that objective, several scientists, aquarium staff and ECU researchers collaborated to design an experimental research project.

In fall 2024, three nature-based, environmentally friendly designs were implemented to determine their effects on combating erosion in different areas of the state park. Some reefs were left as is to serve as controls for the natural experiment.

Numerous scientists collected data at the site, including NOAA's Brandon Puckett, who has used drones to survey and record the scope of shoreline changes and restoration. This gives North Carolina researchers, including Gittman and Blakeslee, valuable pre-restoration data across many habitats to compare to data now being collected.

Shoreline Inhabitants

Dovetailing off this location and current research, Blakeslee - whose research focuses on non-native and invasive coastal species - has collaborated with Gittman on numerous living shoreline research projects since 2017. Blakeslee and Gittman recently received a two-year $150,000 North Carolina Sea Grant to examine the impact of living shoreline design on the introduction of native and non-native species such as fish and crabs, parasites and fouling organisms that attach to the structures.

"One of our hypotheses is that we may see more of the non-native species at the beginning stages because they tend to be species that are better at handling disturbance," Blakeslee said.

Blakeslee said there is often a large lag time between invasive species and parasites entering coastal habitats and when they are detected. At that point, it can be difficult to manage the non-native species.

"Non-native species potentially can be very damaging to coastal habitats," she said. "One of the really great things about what we are doing is that we will be detecting organisms at very early stages along these living shorelines."

"We may not be able to respond to some of these invasive species, but at least we can get an idea of where they are and potentially where they could spread," she said.

Valuable Student Experiences

One example of a non-native, invasive species detected early by Blakeslee during a previous research project is the green porcelain crab. It has become one of the most abundant crab species observed in oyster reefs of mid-coast North Carolina.

Mic Schulte, a student completing his Master of Science degree in biology with a concentration in environmental and organismal biology, also has received grant funding for his thesis project and is working with Blakeslee and Gittman on this restoration project. He has predominantly studied the porcelain crab.

"Early on, it was clear that I was going to be working with both [Blakeslee and Gittman] pretty heavily, because there's a lot of overlap in those two labs," Schulte said. "My experiences have been really awesome."

As a kid, Schulte said he was very interested in marine biology, but through working with Blakeslee and Gittman, he has developed a strong interest in invasive species ecology.

"I've gotten a lot of exposure to the bigger picture concepts of coastal ecology and restoration and how my more invasive-species-focused work ties into that. I've really appreciated getting these two very different perspectives and how those perspectives in species-focused studies versus system-focused studies have enhanced my experience and areas of expertise as a researcher in this field," he said.

When he started his graduate program in the summer of 2023, Schulte began working with Blakeslee on porcelain crab research. He got to know the crabs, their habits and what gaps of knowledge were yet to be filled.

These crabs are an invasive species that can be damaging to native habitats. As waters warm, the crabs are moving from the tropics up the coast. They have high densities in oyster reefs and compete for space with native mud crabs. They also are filter feeders and may be taking food away from oysters.

This ultimately turned into Schulte's thesis project, and eventually resulted in grant funding focusing on patterns in the porcelain crab populations along the North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coastlines.

"I definitely got really comfortable with this crab prior to the restoration project going on at Pine Knoll Shores," he said.

As part of the grant-funded project, Schulte is still in the process of analyzing data and how porcelain crabs differ among the three artificial shoreline structures. He has noted that it is interesting that the number of porcelain crabs has declined since the structures were put into place. He said it could be that the disturbance affected the population negatively, or the recent cold winters may have played a role, since mass die-offs of the invasive crabs occur with extreme cold.

Why Restoration and Protection are Important

Schulte said this research helps the team better understand how they can improve the health of the marshes and coastal ecosystems, and preserve their native biodiversity over time.

"The more species that are supposed to be there, the better," Schulte said. "When we have these invasive species come in, they can really throw off those systems. And when systems are already vulnerable from climate change and from anthropogenic impacts, then adding additional biotic changes - changes to the food web, introducing new species - it can make it even harder to maintain biodiversity over time."

Shoreline and habitat restoration and protection is important not only to the ecosystem and food webs, but also to the state's commercial fishing and tourism industries, and to local homeowners.

"People love to eat oysters. So oysters are commercially valuable," Gittman said. "We are providing a habitat for oysters when you restore these shorelines. That's a win-win. They may not be harvesting the oysters off the restoration site, but those oysters are contributing to the population. They are going to produce oyster larvae that end up in the water column and then can settle and form new reefs along the coast. So they are supporting the commercial population that might be harvested elsewhere."

Marsh and seagrass habitats are used by juvenile species of important commercial and recreational fish and crustaceans that people catch and eat, including shrimp, blue crab and red drum. Thus, these areas also are important for the fishing and tourism industry, Gittman said.

Additionally, although the research is being conducted in a state park, many of the restoration techniques inform property owners about how they may ensure the longevity of their private shorelines. These habitats, applied to residential shorelines, are an alternative to putting up seawalls and bulkheads that may require more costly maintenance or cause other erosion issues in the long term.

"We've been able to show that these approaches can protect someone's property from erosion," Gittman said.

In addition to preserving the coastline, Gittman and Blakeslee's research will provide more data on a variety of species that may be harming the coastline's native inhabitants.

"Our work will help in understanding the early phases of potential invasion, not just by porcelain crabs, but other species as well," Blakeslee said.

The findings from this study also will inform future living shoreline designs and will be incorporated into a state living shoreline guidance manual being developed by living shoreline practitioners, coastal researchers, managers and permitting agencies.

Gittman and Blakeslee see ongoing collaborations as positive partnerships for ECU and beyond. These partnerships benefit the university as an R1 research institution, ECU students who gain valuable immersive research experience, and national, state and community organizations who may apply the outcomes to better serve the environment, people and industries of North Carolina.

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