There are lingering effects of the last few hurricanes to strike Grand Bahama, and now research is underway to produce a baseline study of the impact of seawater on the pine forests of Dover Sound, Queen's Cove and West End.
Dr. Andrew Moxey, assistant professor of chemistry at The College of The Bahamas' Northern Bahamas campus, recently gave a progress report on his investigations named, "Ocean Incursions into the Caribbean Pine (Pinus caribeae) Forest on East Grand Bahama: Impact on Soil Chemistry".
He was one of the presenters at last week's Bahamas Natural History Conference held at The College of The Bahamas' Oakes Field campus.
According to Dr. Moxey, who is conducting the research along with Zeko McKenzie, despite the very frequent incidences of hurricane disturbance the true impact of these events on The Bahamas' coastal and inland ecosystems remains meagerly studied and minimally understood.
The flooding caused by hurricanes like Sandy, Frances, Jeanne and Wilma washed over the pine forests and the soil and in the aftermath left the vegetation scarred and blighted. Strong winds, ocean surges, and salt spray caused even more devastation. Dr. Moxey acknowledged that there is stark visual evidence of the impact of these severe storms. This is what has prompted the scientific investigations which began in December 2013, following Hurricane Sandy.
"The objectives we sought to accomplish [are] basically to document the current ground cover and vegetation conditions across the study area to generate some baseline data. Meanwhile, we wanted to, as best we could, evaluate and document some of the differences in selected soil chemical properties and in the vegetation profiles between what we are calling for this talk, affected areas and unaffected areas," Dr. Moxey explained.
The researchers are also seeking to investigate the most subtle changes such as the nature and extent of chemical changes in the soil by evaluating soil attributes like PH, conductivity, ion distribution and organic content.
One of the challenges to the study has been the period between the initiation of the research and the passing of the last hurricane -- Sandy in October 2012. Dr. Moxey said there were a number of issues to overcome: by then surge levels had receded, washout occurred to a very large extent due to rainfall and to a certain degree the ground cover had begun to change.
"The affected zones are pretty much what you would expect of a healthy pine forest, but when we began to survey and move into what we think are known surge affected areas we can see a distinct depletion in the chlorophyll level in those areas. The crowns of the trees begin to disappear and it even gets worst. And this is what large sections of the forest look like," Dr. Moxey explained.
He added that the researchers are still quite early in their investigations and strong conclusions have not yet been formed.
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