9806049 This proposal was submitted to the NSF-wide Professional Opportunities for Women in Research and Education (POWRE) program. The proposal requests funding for research to quantify relationships between hydrodynamic characteristics of seagrass canopies and the geochemistry of underlying sediments. The PI hypothesizes that this relationship could affect distribution of seagrasses. The PI plans to collect seagrass samples from along the East Coast and 1) determine the range of permeablililties of sediments colonized by seagrasses, 2) evaluate the effect of seagrasses on pore water fluxes at different current velocities and seagrass densities; and 3) quantify the hydrodynamic mediated intrusion of particulate matter into permeable sediments colonized by seagrasses. Some work will be performed in collaboration with Dr. Markus Huettel using his recirculating flume at the Max Plank Institute in Bremen, Germany.
