Project: Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research site

Adapted from http://www.lternet.edu/sites/pie
The Plum Island Ecosystems (PIE) LTER is an integrated research, education and outreach program that began in 1998.  The goal of the PIE LTER is to develop a predictive understanding of the long-term response of watershed and estuarine ecosystems at the land-sea interface to changes in climate, land use and sea level. The principal study site is the Plum Island Sound estuary, its coupled Parker, Rowley and Ipswich River watersheds, extensive tidal marshes and the adjacent coastal ocean. The PIE study area is connected to the Gulf of Maine in the Acadian biogeographic province, which is a cold water, macrotidal environment that is geographically and biologically distinct from coastal ecosystems to the south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The PIE LTER focuses on how several aspects of global change influence organic matter and inorganic nutrient biogeochemistry and estuarine foodwebs. The inputs of organic matter and nutrients from land, ocean and marshes interact with the external drivers (climate, land use, river discharge, sea level) to dictate the extent and degree of nutrient and organic matter processing and determine the spatial patterns of estuarine productivity and trophic structure.

PIE LTER Data: The Plum Island Ecosystems (PIE) LTER data are managed by and available directly from the PIE project data site URL shown above.  If there are any datasets listed below, they are data sets that were collected at or near the PIE LTER sampling locations, and funded by NSF OCE as ancillary projects related to the PIE LTER core research themes. See the PIE LTER Data Overview page for access to data and information about data management policies.